diss 3X2,350 
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permissu Superiorum 

JOHN J. HUGHES, C.S.P., 

Superior-General 



mm ©bstat 

REMIGIUS LAFORT, S.T.D., 

Censor 



imprimatur 

^•JOHN CARDINAL FARLEY, 

Archbishop of New York 



New York, September 30, 1914. 



The Spiritual Life 



i 

DOCTRINE AND PRACTISE OP 
CHRISTIAN PERFECTION 



BY 

REV. WALTER ELLIOTT 

OF THE PA ULIST FA THERS 



New York 
THE PAULIST PRESS 
120-122 West 6oth Street 
1914 



Copyright, 1914, by "The Missionary Society 
St. Paul the Apostle in the State 
of New York" 



JAN 28 1915 

©CLA393444 
1u / 



MS 

"VI 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 



I. 

Holy Retirement I i 

II. 

God and My Soul 8 

III. 

Approving the Better Things, or Christian Perfec- 
tion 18 

IV. 

Banded Together for Perfection 30 

V. 

Fear and Love 39 

VI. 

Mortal Sin or the Holy War 50 

VII. 

Cost and Compensation, or the Necessity of Penance 60 

VIII. 

The Mystery of Suffering 72 

. (v) 



vi CONTENTS 



PAGE 

IX. 

Death 82 

X. 

Judgment 90 

XL 

Eternal Punishment 100 

XII. 

Tepidity and Venial Sin 109 

XIII. 

The Passion of Christ 119 

XIV. 

Confession, or the Gospel Door of Mercy 129 

XV. 

The Mercy of God 139 

XVI. 

A Meditation on the Blessed Eucharist 148 

XVII. 

Making a Virtue of Necessity 157 

XVIII. 

Striving for the Mastery, or Christian Self-Denial 165 

XIX. 

The Might of the Inward Man 174 



CONTENTS vii 

PAGE 

XX. 

Prayer the Response to Grace 184 

XXL 

Think Diligently Upon Him, or the Prayer of Medi- 
tation 192 

XXII. 

Spiritual Reading - 201 

XXIII. 

The Pillar of Cloud, or Sensible Devotion 209 

XXIV. 

The Blessed Virgin Mary 221 

XXV. 

Humbled and Exalted . 232 

XXVI. 

Mildness and Force 243 

XXVII. 

Reasonable Service, or Obedience 252 

XXVIII. 

Chastity 262 

XXIX. 

Poverty 271 

XXX. 

Purity of Heart 281 



viii CONTENTS 



PAGE 

XXXI. 

The Worth of the Commonplace 290 

XXXII. 

Employment of Time 299 

XXXIII. 

Brotherly Love 309 

XXXIV. 

The Apostolate of the Schoolroom 319 

XXXV. 

Conversation 330 

XXXVI. 

Simplicity and Truthfulness 340 

XXXVII. 

The Conversion of America 349 

XXXVIII. 

The Mystery of Perseverance 361 

XXXIX. 

Till the Shadows Retire 371 

XL. 

Earth and LIeaven 379 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



< 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 



i. 

HOLY RETIREMENT. 

Silence is an asset capable of very diverse investment. One 
may be fond of silence and loneliness because he is stupid, 
or ignorant; or because he wishes to spite his friends — a sullen 
silence, grieving those whose happiness depends on his kind 
words. Perhaps it may be the shyness of a bashful spirit that 
makes us hold our peace — a form of human respect. But re- 
ligious solitariness is that prayerful wisdom which finds the soul's 
best solace in conversing alone with God. " Imagine, in 
the simplicity of thy heart, that thou art out of the world with 
God, that thou art already in eternity, separated from the body, 
and no longer disturbed by the things of earth " — an exhortation 
of Blessed Albertus Magnus, which needs but a grammatical re- 
setting to become a definition of religious solitude. 

Let us realize that it is God's plan to sanctify us one by 
one. Holiness is indeed imparted by the outward medium of 
the Sacraments, yet it is an inward process. Now, " silence 
is the conversation of the divinity, the language of the angels, the 
eloquence of heaven, the art of persuading God." So said de 
Ranee who had known all the joys and all the benefits of speech 
in his life in the world, and of silence in his life at La Trappe. 
Trust him with the scales for adjusting their relative value. 

We cannot conceive of anyone acquiring an intimate love 
of God, or a deep grief for sin, except he be fond of spiritual 
retirement. Holy love and holy sorrow are fruit of the tree of 
solitude. Sanctification is no doubt a relationship of the soul to 

Co 



2 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



its Maker many-sided and variously graded; but St. Teresa 
says that " it is a divine union, in which our Lord takes His de- 
light in the soul, whilst the soul rejoices in Him " (Way of Per- 
fection, ch. xvi., 4). We find the same doctrine everywhere in 
Tauler, who constantly preaches that it is good to be alone, and 
he ever and again reminds us that the search for divine things, 
nay for God Himself, is to be inward and not outward, except 
for the doing of good works and the great acts of our sacra- 
mental life. And even these divine external activities are meant 
to drive us inward to think and love in God's silent company. 
This it is that dignifies us, transforming us into " the hidden 
man of the heart, in the incorruptibility of a quiet and a meek 
spirit, which is rich in the sight of God " (1 Peter iii. 4). 

Yet, practically considered, one is often perplexed about the 
uses of reticence. Thus, when you begin to debate with your- 
self as to saying or not saying things, if it be a question of 
prudence you hold your peace, resisting the plea that your words 
may do some good. If you are perplexed on the score of charity, 
you hold your peace for Christ's sake, resisting the plea that 
your words may do no harm. If obedience lays its finger on your 
lips, surely you must hold your peace, resisting the plea that a 
little gabble is no great sin. If your inner monitor bids you 
hold your peace on the general principle that if " speech is silver 
silence is golden," then the goodness there is in merely holding 
one's peace, the gain there is in merely hushing up talk, must 
incline you to be still. On general principles incline to talk not, 
even to listen not. But our love of silence should readily yield up 
some good speech at the bidding of kindly manners and common 
sense. Meanwhile, and always, beware of petty scruples about the 
obligation of saying things. To an aspiring nature the company of 
one's lonely self is the atrium of the divine audience chamber. 
Blessed the man whose home, be it palace or cottage, 
is for some notable part of each day a veritable Thebaid. 
Of Thomas a, Kempis we are told: "He was happier in his 
cell than out of it, and took little or no interest in the outside 



HOLY RETIREMENT 



3 



world." Yet he wrote a little book for " the outside world," 
which heads the list of all books, big or little, next to Holy Writ. 
No one but a solitary could write a book which is the busy man's 
prayer book the world over. " Wisdom is drawn out of hidden 
places. It is hid from the eyes of all the living. God under- 
standeth the way of it, and He knoweth the place thereof " 
(Job xxviii. 1 8, 21, 23). 

No virtue is so difficult as humility, and to it no road is 
so straight as the meek path of silence. " I have set a guard to my 
mouth when the sinner stood against me; I was dumb, and was 
humbled, and kept silence from good things. ... .1 was dumb and 
opened not my mouth, because Thou hast done it" (Ps. xxxviii. 
2, 3, 10). After Job had poured out his soul to God in accents 
of complaint, surely the most touching in all literature, God 
answered him, and chided him for his rashness in debating his 
sorrows with the Most High. Upon which the holy man said: 
What can I answer, who hath spoken inconsiderately ? I will 
lay my hand upon my mouth " (Job xxxix. 34). Strive against 
speech in the day of trial, and thou shalt master the arrogant 
demon within thee. Learn the profit, no less than the sweetness, 
of the divine admonition : " Be still and see that I am God " 
(Ps. xlv. 11). 

Oftentimes it is holy labor that charms us away from holy 
stillness, not seldom with the authority of justice, but just 
as often with the greed of a monopolist. Mark how Christ 
acted. Easter Sunday night, when the disciples were gathered 
together for fear of the Jews, panic-stricken fugitives, shut off 
from the chattering world, behind locked and bolted doors, the 
risen Jesus suddenly stood in the midst of them. In their deep 
retirement He breathed the Holy Ghost into their very souls, and 
said twice over: " Peace be unto you " (John xx. 19). O most 
affectionate greeting, bestowing the priceless boon of holy peace, 
coupled with the power to forgive sins! Mark, therefore, the 
worth of the fugitive state, and of shrinking with fear from a 
clamorous world. Mark, too, in the lives of holy men and 



4 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



women, how when zeal draws them to labor for souls in the otu 
ward apostolate, a more positive zest and affection withdraws 
them (the earliest moment that duty permits) back to silence and 
prayer. A sensible preference for solitude and its spiritual 
exercises is the plainest mark of a calling for the busiest occu- 
pations of zeal — both a vocation and a promise of fruit. The 
right spirit is a great readiness for work after prayer, and a 
greater readiness for prayer after work. 

How long did Jesus linger in Nazareth? Year followed 
year, and yet He lingered on — years submerged but not lost. 
Their power for active efficacy was like the sweetness of honey, 
so slowly gathered and stored, so quickly eaten. If Calvary 
teaches us to love death even for our enemies' sake, Nazareth's 
lesson is the divinity of silent waiting. Nazareth's thirty years 
are meaningless, if retirement from external labors for 
silent meditation, and the postponing of work for the sake of 
prayer, be a mistake. He Who is appointed to save the world 
by preaching, spends nearly His entire life in silent retirement 
from His auditory. Does this not prove that seeking God 
alone, or with only Mary and Joseph for company, is the 
truest fertilization of activity? O noble ambition — to choose 
many years of prayer with a view to a few years of divine 
activity ! O true paradox of zeal, which makes zeal for solitude 
the seed for the fruit of a tumultuous apostolate! In our earliest 
era it was shown that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of 
the Church." For every era the motto holds good that the 
martyrdom of obscurity is the seed-bed of heroism. " Love to be 
unknown and counted for nothing" says the Imitation, charac- 
terizing the novitiate of active teachers and preachers. 

The object of a Retreat is " That you may walk worthy of 
God, in all things pleasing; being fruitful in every good work, 
and increasing in the knowledge of God " (Col. i. 10). By it you 
are to be introduced into an inner shrine, that like St. Anthony 
of the desert you may come forth " fully conversant with its 
mysteries, and instinct with God." Ages ago God gave 



HOLY.. RETIREMENT 



5 



as His own definition of holiness, pointing to Himself as the 
motive: " You shall be holy, because I am holy " (Levit. xi. 46). 
Like Master like man. But the resemblance must be wrought 
out in prolonged and solitary companionship, such as a Retreat 
secures. 

As a system of practical conduct, a devout life consists 
in " a familiar and easy habit of accompanying outward 
actions with attention to the divine presence " (Alban Butler 
on St. Catherine de Ricci). Emphasize "familiar and easy" 
in this definition. To the many, prayer is hard striving; to the 
chosen few, it is as easy as play. Note the date when resort 
to prayer first ranks among your relaxations of life; for this is 
decisive of spirituality; and also of perfect success in either 
prayer or work. During a Retreat the Spirit of God drills us 
into His inner discipline. Our faculties are schooled in the union 
of the outer and inner life of Christ. The outer life may easily 
be uncoupled from the inner motive, and action is only Christian 
when it proceeds from inspiration in some true meaning of the 
word. 

Virtue may consist of occasional acts and transient moods 
of fervor, it is then the quality of ordinary souls. But 
when fervor dominates the soul, and its impulses become 
habitual both in affections and convictions, we have the 
spiritual temper known as perfection. Now fervor rightly under- 
stood is synonymous with silent dwelling with God; it 
is a meditative tendency. " For growth in virtue," says St. 
John of the Cross, "the important thing is to be silent and to work. 
Conversation distracts, silence and work bring recollection " 
{Maxim 295). Therefore when our Lord sent Llis disciples on 
their holy work, He said to them : " Salute no man by the way " 
(Luke x. 4). Their mission was to absorb them wholly, it was 
to occupy and preoccupy them. Who does not know that to 
maintain such self-restraint he needs the occasional discipline of 
Retreat? 

A Retreat is also a season of penance, for true repentance 



6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



is shown by humble silence no less than by tearful pleading. 
" Thy words have I hidden in my heart, that I may not sin against 
Thee " ( Ps. cxviii. 1 1 ) , exclaims the royal penitent. 

When Moses would approach God in the burning bush, he 
heard a voice saying : " Put off the shoes from thy feet, for 
the place whereon thou standest is holy ground" (Ex. hi. 5). 
In Retreat we draw near to God. Not only must the dust of 
everyday life be shaken off, but our shoes must be laid aside. 
The excursions of our imagination must be halted, our memory 
bridled. God's voice has preempted this holy mount. His fire 
burns in our hearts with pain for the past, so that pure hope may 
be found amid the cinders of all mundane delusions. Loosen 
your shoes ; loosen and cast away every thought that is not of 
God: attend to God. He is within you, He enlightens, He 
absorbs, He heartens you. 

Several spiritual advantages are to be had here not possible 
elsewhere, at least not with such concentrated influence. First, 
the silence of God, voluntary, religious, uniform in its strict ob- 
servance; and day by day growing more eloquent of the true 
aim of life. Then the conferences, meditations, examens, 
the common offices and prayers. These are the outward words 
of God, spoken with the advantage of entire monopoly of sound. 
By them God purifies motives, dispells doubts, banishes faint- 
heartedness, gives zest for holy works, thrusts out low views of 
vocation, smooths irritability, and connects blind antipathies. 
The Retreat gives God fair play with the soul. Experience 
proves that when well done, it may compass the spiritual achieve- 
ments of many years ; and that, unquestionably, it adjusts the year 
that follows it to God's standards of perfection. 

Hence it outranks other exercises of religion. Holy Church 
makes it an obligation in every religious community, and lavishes 
upon it her most precious indulgences. Thus the highest au- 
thority on earth withdraws the soul from perishable things to 
devote it to what is heavenly — leads it from the outer to the 
inner world. When duty calls us back again to the outer order, 



HOLY RETIREMENT 



7 



we go with motives cleansed and forces renewed. A Retreat 
is made for the sake of more intimate union with God ; it is made 
in the interests of our whole duty to God both external and 
interior. One sinks out of sight into the depths of his own heart 
where God awaits him ; and finds employment in intercourse with 
the Deity. From it he comes forth full of zeal, patience, kind- 
liness, sympathy, with a quickened facility for placing the motives 
of Calvary at the root of all his conduct. 

We go into Retreat in response to the invitation of Christ : 
" And He said to them : Come apart into a desert place and rest 
awhile. For there were many coming and going, and they had not 
so much as time to eat " (Mark vi. 31) . Blessed the fatigue borne 
in company with the busy, wearied Savior; and yet more blessed 
the rest enjoyed in the company of the restful Savior. Let us 
now look for a new conversion to God, one that shall be absolute, 
final. Let us claim boundless graces for future labors, since we 
are devotedly giving ourselves up to the tranquility of God. 
Here shall we balance our lives equitably between the outer and 
the inner weight of purpose. As St. Leonard of Port Maurice 
expressed it : " My vocation is giving missions — and living in 
solitude." 

How carefully should we safeguard this holy seclusion; 
observing all rules strictly; yet avoiding anxiety, knowing that 
we are now to rest quiet and give God a free hand. If we 
but keep our thoughts out of the world, God will quickly elevate 
them to heaven. " My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready " 
(Ps. cvii. 2) — if we can honestly say that, the Retreat is already a 
success. Forget old scruples on the one hand, and detest self- 
sufficiency on the other. Away with worriments, discourage- 
ments. Assimilate the conferences, gently allow them to 
work out their conclusions in good resolutions, and pray God 
quietly but earnestly to make your besetting weakness more 
clearly manifest to you. 



II. 



GOD AND MY SOUL. 

The holy Emperor, St. Henry, on meeting St. Romuald, 
cried out : " I wish my soul were like thine." And we would 
say the same to our Savior. Made in our natural life in 
the likeness of the Father (Gen. i. 26), we are in our sanctifica- 
tion to be transformed into the image of the Son, " from glory 
to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. iii. 18). Such 
is the meaning of our thanksgiving after Communion : " Soul of 
Christ, sanctify me ! " In meditating on our soul's dignity, let 
us realize our Lord's interest in it; as God, He has created it, 
and as the God-man He has purchased it. 

Of St. Bonaventure it is said that " his sweetest joy was 
to consider by how many titles he belonged to God." To 
know how one belongs to God is the supreme wisdom of the 
ages. Never say of any human being: he is a worthless creature. 
He is worth the life's blood of the Son of God. You 
perceive that our first meditation is on ourselves, our souls. 
May all transitory things vanish out of our minds whilst we 
mingle among God's angels and saints, and learn from Him 
the wisdom of eternity! O Lord Jesus Christ! open wide the 
book of Thy heart, that we may learn from it what it means 
to possess an immortal soul. 

If a man were asked about his name, his parents, or his 
country, and he could tell nothing about them, would he 
not be considered grossly ignorant? Stupid as this would be, 
it is unspeakably more so to be ignorant of our soul's condition, 
of its country, and its Father. Many a man knows much more 
about his dogs than about his immortal soul. No such shame 

(3) 



GOD AND MY SOUL 9 

rests upon us, thanks be to God. Yet now and then the unseen 
life of thought and love which is our spirit's occupation grows 
dim to us, and must be studied over again. Our attention to the 
divine life in us is withdrawn even by outward occupations, in 
themselves praiseworthy, and must again and again be renewed 
and fixed by meditation. 

If we would know what place our soul holds in the order of 
existences, listen to God's prophet comparing it with the angels. 
He addresses the Creator and exclaims : " Thou hast made him 
[man] a little less than the angels, Thou hast crowned him with 
glory and honor, and hast set him over the works of Thy hands " 
(Ps. viii. 6-7). The soul then is a spirit, less than the angels 
of God only because joined to a body. It is made of a heavenly 
substance, and endowed with living thought and purpose and 
memory. This being, whose existence it is to will and to love, to 
think and to decide, to long and to aspire — this wondrous being 
is my soul. How far superior is this soul of mine to that gross 
thing, my body ! 

In the ancient Scriptures the Holy Ghost says : " My delight 
is to be with the children of men" (Prov. viii. 31). The 
attraction of our souls draws God down from heaven itself. 
It is His delight to read our thoughts, to hear our words, to 
have a part in our souls' daily life, to win their love, to prepare 
them for Paradise. Therefore does St. Teresa say : " What must 
that dwelling be, in which a King so mighty, so wise and so pure, 
having in Himself all that is good, can delight to rest " (Interior 
Castle, I. Mansions, ch. i.). 

In this life we are a little less than the angels. But our 
Lord says of good men, that in heaven they shall be the equals 
of angels : " They are equal to the angels and are the children 
of God, being the children of the resurrection" (Luke xx. 36). 
Two brothers think and act alike, they look alike, have a common 
love and common knowledge of things. So you and your 
guardian angel are two brothers, alike in all things, except that 
he wears the robes of heaven, and you your poor earthly 



10 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



body, " this muddy vesture of decay." " God deliver us, my 
daughters," exclaims St. Teresa, " when we fall into any im- 
perfection, from saying: We are not angels, we are not saints. 
Although we are not, still, it is the greatest help to believe that, 
with the aid of God, we can be, if we strive our hardest" {Way 
of Perfection, Stanbrook, ch. xvi., 8). 

You may have seen an ape almost the size of a man, and you 
are both startled by the resemblance, and ashamed and humiliated 
to see one so like a man, that is, in some ways, the most disgusting 
of beasts. So does an angel feel when he looks on a soul in 
mortal sin. You have known a pure, refined woman. She 
becomes insane, and you are shocked beyond expression when 
you see her in the madhouse, a loathsome creature, sunk below 
the level of the brutes. So are we changed by mortal sin. 

Consider the spirituality of the soul. Grind the body to 
powder, and you cannot so much as touch the spirit. It survives 
every stroke, it is superior to all that destroys the body. When 
the bodily life has gone, what becomes of the mental life? The 
spiritual being that you are — what will become of it when your 
body is stricken down by death? At a Christian's funeral, 
does his fidelity to truth pass into the grave? Does His love 
for the Eternal God rot in his coffin? The soul's Hfe is as 
eternal as that of the truth it has loved and the divine law it 
has steadfastly obeyed. Your soul had a youth; it never shall 
have an old age — its youth is eternal. What old man but knows 
that his soul is younger than his body? As the body grows 
old, the spirit grows young. Yet how vast a multitude of 
men devote themselves exclusively to the dying life of their 
bodies. 

The setting sun turns the gray clouds of evening into the 
golden and jeweled battlements of distant heaven. Yet the 
material is dull fog, and the beauty is glorious sunlight. So is 
the body a dull and miserable mass of flesh. The soul's bright- 
ness it is that shines in our bodily eyes with celestial beauty — or 
blazes forth with demoniac hate. It is the soul that thrills with 



GOD AND MY SOUL 



if 



love's sweetness in the clasp of a hand that is mere clay. Look 
at that dead man's lips. They will soon be putrid in the grave 
and run with the worms of death. Yet while the soul ruled 
their utterance, they gave forth sounds of truth and love never 
to be forgotten ; or they spat forth the eternal venom of revenge. 
For weal or woe eternal, the soul expends its life through the 
body. 

Consider the dignity of our soul bestowed by God in its 
creation. Everything that God has made tells of its divine 
Master; but none of His creatures is so eloquent of Him as our 
soul, since it alone is the living reproduction of Himself. Stand 
upon a mountain top and look out upon the restless ocean, look 
upward into the overhanging firmament, behold the expanding 
and vanishing vista of hills and plains, forests and rivers. A 
sentiment of awe pervades your thoughts. You say : " Here is 
the presence of God ; God's likeness is reflected in these splendors 
of nature, which but thinly veil His face." Yet these are but God's 
footprints, not His likeness; they are but marks of His handi- 
work. For water and air and the fiery sun, how can such 
things image the infinite Spirit of God? He never said 
of the earth and the sky and the sea, let us make these to our 
image and likeness. By His mere wish and word they sprang 
forth into being. A word, and the blue canopy of the heavens 
is spread out. A word, and the stars and the planets beam 
forth and begin their stately course. A word, and the sun 
bursts into being, flooding the universe with waves of light and 
heat. A word, and the waters and the dry land are divided, 
the sea rolls and swells in its unfathomed depths, the continents 
bloom with every variety of plant and tree, and are peopled 
with myriads of beasts and birds. " For He spoke and they 
were made; he commanded and they were created" (Ps. xxxii. 
9). But it was not by words alone that God made man. 
" Let us make man to our own image and likeness," He said. 
And having formed his body out of the substance of the earth, 
<k He breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became 



12 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

a living soul" (Gen. ii. 7). It was the exercise of a power 
above words. Our creation is the breathing forth of God's own 
beauty and glory from the abyss of the divine life. 

An image is true if the artist who makes it is perfectly 
well acquainted with the original it is designed to represent; and 
also if he be skillful in the art of image making. How does 
God, the divine artist, know Himself? With infinite knowledge. 
And what skill has He in making His own image? Infinite 
skill, for He ever and eternally produces and generates His divine 
Son, Who is "the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His 
substance" (Heb. i. 3). And it is thus that man is "the 
image and glory of God " (1 Cor. xi. 7). 

But consider further our soul's dignity as shown by God 
becoming man. " God," says St. Francis de Sales, " has made 
us to His own image and likeness by creation, and made Himself 
to our own image and likeness by His Incarnation; after which 
He suffered death to ransom and save us" {Love of God, 
Mackey, p. 332). "What will a man give in exchange for his 
soul?" (Matt. xvi. 26) asks our Lord. What God will give in 
exchange for a man's soul is shown by the gift of His Only- 
begotten Son. 

St. Paul says : " As many of you as have been baptized 
in Christ, have put on Christ" (Gal. iii. 27). We are clothed 
and adorned with Christ ; our soul's faculties are filled with His 
knowledge and His love; our Savior's precious blood is poured 
over us and into us by the infusion of the waters of Baptism. 
That is what is meant by our souls being Christened, made 
brethren and sisters of Jesus Christ and co-heirs with Him of 
His Father's kingdom. Has any single one of us ever appre- 
ciated the dignity of a Christian soul? St. Paul teaches that 
in Jesus Christ " dwelleth the fullness of the Godhead bodily " 
(Col. ii. 9) ; and that therefore it is absolutely true to say that 
our Savior is " the equal of God " (Phil. ii. 6). And my soul — 
O wonderful to say — is the equal of God by the valuation of the 
Father, because I have been purchased by the death of Jesus 



GOD AND MY SOUL 



13 



Christ. " Know you not," exclaims the same Apostle, " that you 
are not your own. For you are bought with a great price " 
(1 Cor. vi. 19, 20). 

See those little children racing after soap bubbles floating 
all bright and beautiful in the sunlight; and as they grasp them 
they waste away in their hands. Alas, the objects of vanity 
which men pursue are as frail as soap bubbles, and their bright- 
ness is as fleeting. O what folly to strive to satisfy a soul made 
to enjoy God alone with the fooleries of this world. St. Paul 
says : " When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood 
as a child, I thought as a child. But, when I became a man, 
I put away the things of a child" (1 Cor. xiii. 11). The toys 
of childhood: we look back with a smile at our happiness in 
possessing them, our proud sense of ownership of them, our total 
absorption in playing with them. Ah, have we no playthings 
in our grown-up years ? Is all our time occupied with honorable 
labor and needful prayer, and well-earned, guileless relaxation? 
May God guide us away from the childish folly that may even 
now decoy our heart from the grave thoughts of eternity and 
the sober purposes of religion. 

My state of life compels me to set apart many 
hours for good work, and some time is given to devout 
exercises. But does not my mind too often float away into the 
idle sunshine of imagination? Am I glad to work and pray? 
Am I the religious-minded Christian who seriously ponders 
"the days of old, and hath in mind the eternal years?" (Ps. 
lxxvi. 6.) Am I reaping a harvest of eternal life by the 
prayers and the sacraments and all the other ways of holiness 
that here abound? Or does obliviousness to divine things 
make great gaps in the hours that should be given to recollec- 
tion? In time of famine men and women cook weeds and grass 
and the leaves of trees and eat them, in the vain hope of staying 
the pangs of hunger with the food of animals. So do men and 
women endeavor to satisfy the cravings of their immortal souls 
with the unnutritious joys of this world. Alas that we should 



14 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



strive to appease our appetite for God with food fit only for 
creatures whose whole life is but a summer's day. 

It is related of Blessed Cardinal Fisher that when he was in 
prison for refusing to take the oath of supremacy to Henry VIII., 
some of his friends visited him, urging all sorts of reasons 
why he should comply with the demands of the king. Wishing 
to rid himself of such tempters, he told them that if they 
would return on a certain day he would follow their advice, 
provided they answered one question to his satisfaction. 
This was agreed upon, and his friends came back at the appointed 
hour. The question was : " What shall it profit a man if he 
gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul ? " 
His friends retired. Cardinal Fisher won his martyr's crown. 

A similar incident is told of Blessed Thomas More while 
locked in his prison cell. His wife used to come to him often, 
pleading with him to obey the king for the sake of his family. 
In reply he asked her one day how long she thought him likely 
to live, supposing he obeyed King Henry's command. She an- 
swered that he would likely live for twenty years at least. " If 
you had said twenty thousand years, there might have been some 
show of reason," he answered, " but what are even twenty thou- 
sand years of life on earth in comparison with eternity ? " He, 
too, won his crown of martyrdom. 

How carefully a mechanic learns his trade, how life-long is 
his patient and skillful toil in exercising it. A student of 
science spends many years among books and under pro- 
fessors that he may at last become a learned teacher. All men 
of character devotedly strive during the whole earlier and more 
precious part of life to have a business, all for this world. 
If we but did the same in the business of our soul's sanctifi- 
cation, for the deeper and deeper understanding of God's law, 
the practice of Christian virtue, we should become saints. Men 
are life-long drudges for gold; even " for a single penny," says 
the Imitation of Christ, " men will shamefully quarrel." Yet 
from pennies or from millions they must soon be dragged away 



GOD AND MY SOUL 



15 



forever. Why will they not lay up " treasures in heaven " (Matt, 
vi. 20) for eternal possession and for unspeakable joy, the 
foretaste of which makes even this life an earthly paradise? 
It is only when the supreme importance of the spiritual life 
dawns on one's mind that the follies of this world begin to 
sicken him. 

You know that the love of this earthly life lingers in our 
hearts after years spent even in cloistered piety. Yet it is a 
perishing life, of which the Apostle said : " The figure of this 
world passeth away" (1 Cor. vii. 31). At the point of death it 
vanishes from us like the sunlight from the eyes of a man 
stricken blind. At the end of the world it will perish utterly, 
with the sky and the starry heavens above it. 

What folly, then, to fix our heart's affections on earthly 
things. Can such things satisfy the cravings of an immortal 
soul? If you did some heroic deed for your country and received 
in reward half of its imperial domain, that very moment a 
peremptory voice within you would whisper : Is this all ? I want 
more. And as you coveted wealth when poor, you would covet 
greater wealth when grown rich. But in reward for the little 
deed of true repentance for your sins, you are given God's 
assurance from on high : " I am thy reward exceeding great " 
(Gen. xv. 1). 

No, it is not the soul of man and this poor perishing earth 
that are destined to be united forever, but the soul of man 
and the Spirit of the infinite God, " in justice, and peace, and joy 
in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. xiv. 17). Turn to your innermost 
soul, and you will find God dwelling there by His very essence 
and His power; and by His love also, if you be in the state of 
grace. There your prayers place you in the divine Heart Itself ; 
there in your own soul is the Heavenly Father Who created you, 
the loving Redeemer Who died for you, the Holy Spirit Who 
sanctified you. After thus communing by prayer and meditation 
with God in your interior, you may turn to the same God in 
your outward life. In a good confession the Blood of Jesus 



i6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Christ cleanses away our sins, and bestows upon us the spirit of 
holy fear and of trustful love. Holy Communion gives us the 
Son of God in His humanity and Divinity in real and perfect 
possession, making our life His own. 

After all this intimate contact with God Himself, all the 
promises of eternal happiness being lavished upon us, how dif- 
ferent seems this passing show of a world. We understand 
better our Lord's description of its final destruction, 
and exclaim with the prophet : " I beheld the earth, and lo ! 
it was void and nothing ; and the heavens, and there was no light 
in them " (Jer. iv. 23). 

God is the fullness of our joy, God alone. My soul — obscure 
creature though I may be — is infinitely more precious than 
all the world's treasures. Can I still people my thoughts, so dear 
to my heavenly Father, with silly dreams of earthly joy? 

Finally consider how true views of our soul's dignity inspire 
us to works of religious zeal. The truest human reality is the 
marvelous fact that each human being has an immortal destiny. 
Therefore, to live rationally is to take a full share in those holy 
activities which make for eternal happiness, our own and our 
neighbor's. That and that alone satisfies our nobler aspirations; 
that and that alone justifies our claim to membership in the divine 
brotherhood of holy Church. 

God constantly urges us to this glorious vocation by interior 
impulses, bright and strong; and externally by the example and 
precepts of His divine Son, and by the edifying lives of saintly 
brethren living and dead. The only self-content He allows us 
is in loving Christ perfectly and praising Him worthily. That 
comes first, and is invariably followed by the winning, through 
our own example and teaching, of our fellowmen to a clearer view 
of the supremacy and loveliness of spiritual things. Herein 
does the love of God absorb brotherly love, imparting to it its 
own perfect excellence, and sharing with it its own supreme 
prerogatives. Nations founded, continents explored and peopled, 
armies marshalled, wars fought to victory — these are within the 



GOD AND MY SOUL 



17 



scope of a human force that is low, for it achieves but passing 
results. Such glory may and often does belong to monsters of 
iniquity. But the Christian who cleanses a sinner's soul from 
vice is master of a force essentially divine, and he wins a battle 
whose spoils are everlasting. If thou hast a militant nature, learn 
from God how to conquer thy brother's soul, or rather how to 
wrest it from the clutches of Satan. To place the gentle yoke 
of Jesus Christ upon a soul which has never known any divinity 
but passionate indulgence; to win the proud soul of a skeptic 
to the sweet influences of our Redeemer's love: these are ex- 
ploits worthy of God Himself. 



III. 



APPROVING THE BETTER THINGS, OR CHRISTIAN 
PERFECTION. 

Christian and religious perfection is a word that 
is easily open to much misunderstanding. One thinks that 
if he fasted on bread and water he would be perfect. But St. 
Francis de Sales says that one may do that and yet " drink deep 
of his neighbor's blood, by detraction and calumny." Prayer is 
a necessary means of perfection. But one may say a great many 
prayers and even go often to the sacraments, and be only a per- 
fect nuisance among his fellows; nor will he iorgive injuries. 
Charity to the poor is a sign of perfection, but not an infallible 
one; for there are those who are generous to the poor, and yet so 
imperfect as not to pay their debts. 

What, then, is perfection? St. Bernard tells us that it is 
a sincere purpose to go forward and increase in virtue, 
that is to say, in loving God and our neighbor. St. Paul 
teaches the same doctrine : " That your charity may more and 
more abound in knowledge and in all understanding, that you 
may approve the better things " (Phil. i. 10). 

One sees an admirable spirit of progress in this. How- 
ever little virtue we may have, let us strive in God's name to 
get a little more. The moment a sinner is absolved in a good 
confession and then receives Holy Communion, the test of his 
sincerity is his purpose to do " better things ;" courageously 
to cut out the roots of evil habits, manfully to despise and 
avoid bad company, firmly to keep faith with God and his 
father-confessor about his prayers and his returning to the 
sacraments. The way of perfection is just a strenuous en- 
deavor to get further and further away from sin, and become 
more and more sincere in love of virtue. 

(18) 



APPROVING THE BETTER THINGS 



What is a bright sign of the beginnings of perfection? 
To make up one's mind with sincere humility, to begin immedi- 
ately with the lowest works of the Christian life. Listen to the 
Psalmist : " And I said : Now have I begun ; that is the change 
of the right hand of the most High" (Ps. lxxvi. n). 

Of course, there is much more to be said about perfection 
than can be told in one or two conferences. There are states 
of life, such as that of the priesthood and religious orders, 
which have admirable methods of perfection; and there is the 
miraculous perfection of the saints. These we do not now 
consider; but rather that perfection which is a resolute pur- 
pose to obey God's universal call to love Him better and better 
every day we live. 

Once God restores us to His friendship by pardoning our 
sins, He draws us onward to closer friendship, to stricter ob- 
servance of His commandments, to more loving treatment of our 
neighbor. You are ever advancing step by step towards the 
grave. God would have you advance at the same steady rate 
in the practice of virtue. 

St. Bernard expressed his doctrine in the motto he gave 
the Knights Templars in their Rule, A. d. 1128, describing a 
life and death earnestness : " Alive or dead we are God's." 
Not merely the desire, but the resolute desire to advance in 
virtue for God's sake, is the root of perfection. Not only a 
longing to quit the least sinfulness for His sake, but a long- 
ing which is painfully intense, and brooks no delay in begin- 
ning and going onward — this quality of mind is indispensable 
to the pursuit of perfection. Of that condition St. Francis de 
Sales wrote to St. Jane Frances : " I tell you that my heart 
is made for that only." As the Psalmist said : " All my desire is 
before Thee, and my groaning is not hidden from Thee" (Ps. 
xxxvii. 10) — a desire to go deeper into God's heart. A desire 
for God unto groaning is nothing less than an inspiration to- 
wards perfection. 

The ordinary Christian says in his prayers : " O my God ! I 



20 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



love Thee;" and this he repeats with the monotonous ebb and 
flow of a placid sea. The more aspiring soul does the same 
with a deeper consciousness of the divine deservings; but es- 
pecially with no monotony, but rather a ceaseless variety of 
reasons and intuitions, and an occasional onflowing of a tidal 
wave of joyous purpose. Of all the incidents of such a life, none 
equals the absorbing self-gratulation of discovering the little- 
ness of self and the greatness of God. The spiritual elation 
of fervent souls may be thus interpreted: How glad I am 
of my love for Jesus Christ! And, on the other hand, the 
real sadness of their life is the chagrin at some sudden slip 
of the tongue, or some unbecoming greediness at table — a sad- 
ness not unwelcome because it measures the most needful of 
all virtues, humility, a feeling peculiar only to those whose 
" sole object is real perfection, which is the fervent resolve to 
please God in all things and one's self in nothing" (St. John 
of the Cross, Obscure Night, Book I., ch. iii.). 

It is of the state of aspiring love named Christian perfec- 
tion that the spouse speaks in the Canticles : " If a man should 
give all the substance of his house for love, he shall despise 
it as nothing " (Cant. viii. 7). The value of anything and every- 
thing is really known only by one who knows the good of close 
union with God. The worth of any joy is its rate of exchange for 
the love of God. There is no living without loving. The only 
loving is in loving God the infinitely love-worthy. All other true 
love comes from loving Him, or flows towards loving Him. How 
this drawing towards heaven should be cultivated by sanctifying 
our affections is thus stated by St. Teresa : " Let your desire be to 
see God ; your fear be lest you lose Him ; your grief that you do 
not enjoy Him; and let your joy be for what may lead you to 
Him" (Maxim 69, Dalton). 

Promptness, heartiness, eagerness — if your religion possess 
these qualities, you need only be broken into the harness of holy 
discipline to achieve perfection.* 

*" Devotio nihil aliud esse videtur, quam voluntas quaedam promote 



I 



APPROVING THE BETTER THINGS 21 



When one's mind is set on doing as our Lord and 
His saints did, he should realize that he is responsible for a 
new grace — perfection. When one is afraid of being half- 
hearted with God, he has received a vocation. St. Simon Sty- 
lites in the beginning of his sainthood had a vision which in 
after times he frequently told to beginners. He beheld him- 
self digging for the foundations of a house. When he had 
dug deep enough, as he thought, he heard a voice command- 
ing him to begin again and dig deeper — and this happened 
four times. Only then was he allowed to start building, with 
the assurance that he might safely erect as high and as splen- 
did an edifice as he pleased. Thus was the saint instructed 
to deepen the foundations of desire, of resoluteness, of diligence, 
and especially of desire. " For the house which I desire to 
build is great; for our God is great above all gods" (2 Par. 
ii. 5). There is no room for sickly spirits among God's stal- 
warts. When the weather is rough a sick man lies abed; a 
convalescent creeps to the window, looks out and shivers; a 
thoroughly well man goes forth and breasts the storm. St. 
Teresa says, " there is no place for the chicken-hearted among 
God's chosen ones." 

We see, then, that perfection is not exactly the practice of 
virtues for their own sake, such as poverty, chastity and obe- 
dience, mortification and humility — no, nor even for God's sake, 
but rather it is the eagerness of spirit which inspires this prac- 
tice. The perfection to which all are called, to which some are 
specially called, is a holy ambition for a closer and closer 
union with God — " an interior binding to God," says Tauler, 
"joined to a great longing for eternity:" not saintliness ready 
made, but gladness and eagerness, to become a saint by longings 
and strivings, labors and sufferings for the things of eternity. 

" Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly " (Eccles. 

tradendi se ad ea quae pertinent ad Dei famulatum." " It would seem that 
devotion [perfection] is only a certain kind of good will to promptly deliver 
oneself up to those things which pertain to the service of God " (Summa, 
2a. 2ae. qu. 82, a. i.). 



22 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



ix. 10). Make this energetic maxim a rule for spiritual exer- 
cises as well as for outward good works, and you have the 
plan of advance. Perfection as a condition is earnestness in 
praying and suffering and laboring. St. Francis de Sales in- 
terprets the inspired definition just given when he says that 
perfection " presupposes not a partial but a thorough love of 
God. As divine love adorns the soul, it is called grace, making 
us pleasing to the divine majesty; as it gives us strength to 
do good, it is called charity ; but when it is arrived at that degree 
of perfection by which it not only makes us do well, but also 
work diligently, frequently and readily, then it is called devotion 
[perfection]." {Devout Life, Part L, ch. i.) But neither 
in spirit nor practice must this condition be motived 
by human reason, only by the instincts and inspirations of divine 
grace. Under this progressive influence to worship, mediocrity 
becomes impossible. The motto is no longer, " Be safe," but " Be 
noble." Nor need one be scared by the task, for the sure safety 
of such a soul is in the choice of humble works rather than of 
showy ones. " There are no short ways to perfection, but there 
are sure ones," says Newman — namely, to do the ordinary work of 
each day thoroughly well, only regretting it were not done better. 

The Flemish mystic, John Ruysbroeck, illustrated the value 
of inner resolve by saying to some visitors who asked to be in- 
structed : " You are as holy as you wish to be." They went 
away offended; but he followed after them and said: " Dear- 
est children, tell me how have I deceived you? I said your 
holiness was what you desired it to be; in other words, it is 
proportioned to your good will. Enter into yourselves, exam- 
ine your good will — it is the measure of your perfection." 
Incited thus by God, the beginner proceeds to watch and regu- 
late his native tendencies to pleasure and self-interest, to aver- 
sions and vanities. This era is related to later and more heroic 
conditions, as arithmetic to algebra, a necessary condition for 
reaching the easier and more familiar practice of Christ's coun- 
sels. 



APPROVING THE BETTER THINGS 23 



We do not insist that obedience to the call to perfection 
is a condition of salvation. Yet not seldom it is so plain, so 
imperative, that neglect of it is extremely dangerous. " If thou 
sayest: It is enough! thou hast perished," exclaims St. Augus- 

j tine, referring to such a case. This has a closer, practical 
bearing than may at first sight appear. For if one says : " It is 
enough for me to keep out of mortal sin" — this self-bestowed 
license to commit venial sins quickly demoralizes his reckon- 
ing about mortal sins. The priest or religious who steers by 
the moral theology, which is so largely the manual of First 
Aid for desperate sinners, will soon stumble along on the brink 
of destruction. The one whose call to perfection is not only in- 
terior but also by reason of class and state of life, and who, in- 
stead of taking the maxims of the Gospel for his guide, prates 
of " common sense " as his standard, is marked for destruction. 
After losing the eager outlook for increase in virtue, one soon 
begins to degenerate. Growth is a law of life, of the spiritual 
life above all others. " The path of the just man, as a shining 
light, goeth forward and increaseth, even unto perfect day " 
(Prov. iv. 18). Desire is the inner source of holiness, but 
practice is necessary, for that alone gives development, and its 
neglect is attended with penalties, the chief of which is that 
form of spiritual sloth known as " low views." Purpose is the 
sap of the tree, practice the branches. Lop off a few lower 
branches to concentrate growth in the higher ones and you do 
well. But excess in this process of pruning drives back the sap 
of holy desire, and the whole tree soon rots and dies. 

The purpose of " approving the better things " being firmly 
established, the methods are simple; and they begin with ele- 
mentary virtue. " By what doth a young man correct his 
ways? By observing Thy words" (Ps. cxviii. 9), says the 

1 Psalmist. To keep the Ten Commandments, with a view to 
gradually correcting every littlest deviation from them, is to 
be far on the way to holiness. Many a simple soul, while 
dreaming anxiously of only keeping out of hell, wins by fer- 



24 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



vent love a high place in heaven; just as plain vocal prayer 
sometimes becomes insensibly the medium of contemplation. 
" One day a nun came to me in great distress," writes St. 
Teresa, " because she did not know how to make mental prayer, 
nor could she contemplate, but was only able to pray orally. 
I questioned her and found that she enjoyed pure contempla- 
tion while saying the Pater Noster, and that occasionally God 
raised her to perfect union with Himself " {IV ay of Perfection, 
Stanbrook, xxx., 7). Thus it is with the observance of God's 
law from a powerful impulse of love for the Lawgiver. 

Aye, the supreme law is love; and fortunately the love of 
God has many ways of drawing us. Of all of these the imi- 
tation of Jesus Christ is the compendium. He has abundantly 
emphasized three forms, which are the triple cord of union: 
imitating His poverty, by making little of the good things of 
this life; His chastity, by bridling, according to one's state 
of life, the concupiscence of the flesh; and His obedience, by 
subjecting self-will to God's will, as God lives and acts among us 
by our lawful superiors. These form, we say, the triple bond of 
union when inspired by love, the one virtue sanctifying them 
all : " Above all these things have charity, which is the bond 
of perfection" (Col. iii. 14). Done for the sake of imitating 
Him Who is all in all to us, these three Gospel virtues, as they 
are called, perfect the love of God in a Christian soul. By 
them does God make us " conformable to the image of His 
Son" (Rom. viii. 29). 

In the sunlight of divine love every plant of virtue takes 
root in the soul. The love of Christ makes every virtue flour- 
ish after its own kind. Love of Christ : this is the very essence 
of perfection. " I remember a person," writes St. Catherine 
of Genoa, " possessed by a devil, who was forced to declare 
who he was. He cried out with great force: T am that wretch 
who is deprived of love.' He said this with a voice so piteous 
and penetrating that I was inwardly pierced with compassion, 
especially by the words deprived of love" (Life, ch. xiv.). 



APPROVING THE BETTER THINGS 



25 



The loss of love is the loss of all; the possession of love is 
the endowment of all spiritual power. " Whatever such a one 
does he is eager to do more," says John Tauler. His alacrity 
is conspicuous, his spirit of venture in undertaking holy works 
is beyond his power to suppress. 

We are supposing, meanwhile, the atmosphere of devotion^ 
consisting of a regimen of prayer, spiritual reading, occasional 
intervals of recollection, all established upon a sufficiently fre- 
quent reception of the sacraments. Let him who desires to 
be a true Christian say to God incessantly: " O God! teach me 
to love to say my prayers, give me joy in reading good books, 
make attractive to me a quiet half hour in hearing Mass, 
deepen my sorrow in confession and my joy in Communion." 
To petition heaven thus earnestly is to be nigh to the company 
of the saints. The frequent advice, and now and then the 
authority of a spiritual director who is wise and calm and ex- 
perienced, is, of course, also taken for granted. 

Much, indeed nearly the whole of our visible striving, con- 
sists in curbing tendencies to evil, for when evil goes, holiness 
comes. Hence the Apostle's admonition : " Purge out the old 
leaven, that you may become a new paste" (1 Cor. v. 7). 
Perfection, as a course of conduct, is mainly a vigilant watch 
over venial weaknesses, resulting, in due time, in freedom from 
deliberate venial sins. To this process of purification is joined 
a constant elevation of motives, an unceasing recurrence to 
the original purpose ; for, says St. Teresa, " God will not show 
Himself openly, or reveal His glories, or bestow His treasures, 
save on souls who prove that they ardently desire Him, for 
these are His real friends " ( Way of Perfection, Stanbrook, 
xxxiv., 11). It must never be forgotten that it is rather in 
the motive than in the act that one increases in spiritual stature. 
Action may be now and then wisely limited, but there should 
be no limit to our desires. 

Advance in any single virtue is a symbol of ad- 
vance all along the line. One of the ripest fruits of a 



26 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



spirit's love of God is exhibited by St. Monica in her fare- 
well conversation with St. Augustine : " Son, for my part, 
there is nothing now in this life that gives me any joy " — 
they had been discoursing together about heaven. When any 
earthly thing must borrow joy from heaven to make you happy, 
then you are perfect. 

Fondness for thinking about the last things of life is an- 
other good sign, a sure preventative of all serious venial offense. 
" In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never 
sin " (Ecclus. vii. 40). 

Nothing is more promising in a young man than the desire of 
hodily mortification, a desire spontaneous, hearty and submis- 
sive to authority. If this be joined to the higher and more 
difficult virtue of humility, every presage of a career of holi- 
ness is in evidence. We are supposing persons of fair talents 
and good sense; for certain eccentricities in a bright man and 
lack of brains in any man are fatal to all hopes of spiritual 
proficiency.* But when a fairly intelligent, sensible character 
is resolutely bent on subduing his fleshly appetites, and is 
also quickly amenable to authority, then the whole voyage is 
plain sailing. 

As we have already indicated, to perform commonplace 
actions with positive, wakeful diligence, and with distinct mo- 
tives of love, is set forth as the whole substance of perfection 
by many spiritual writers. What seems a more insignificant 
occupation than answering the letters of pious girls and nerv- 
ous women; or giving sermonettes to groups of peasants? St. 
Francis de Sales did such things all his life; it was the occupa- 
tion which far out-measured his other duties in both time and 
care. And such zest and joy for the love of God did he expend 
in it that it made him the saint we venerate, and produced the 
immortal books that bear his name. 

♦Chronic feebleness of bodily health is for heroic souls a constant spirit- 
ual help. But to all others it is such a justification for self-indulgence that 
novice masters need no other reason for excluding a subject. 



I 



APPROVING THE BETTER THINGS 27; 



Pere Surin, S.J. thus summarizes the more hidden ways 
and means of perfection : " You will find true wisdom by be- 
coming a child, renouncing all your rights, espousing the cross, 
and subjecting yourself to the interior movements of divine 
virtue" (Lettres Spirituelles, lxxxiii.). But of all the virtues 
there is only one (let us say it again) whose power of both saving 
and sanctifying is inherent — the love of God as He is revealed in 
Christ Jesus, and especially in His Passion and Death. Faith is 
the root and foundation of all holiness; but one may have it 
so as to remove mountains and yet be nothing. Hope is the 
anchor of sorrowful hearts in the divine haven of rest; and yet 
between ship and shore of the very harbor of safety one may 
become a castaway. But the sincere love of Jesus Crucified is 
resistless to save always and everywhere. 

To this fervent, and therefore sure, adhesion to God all men 
are remotely called, and many specially and directly bidden. 
Too often they forfeit, or but partially use, their glorious 
privilege. The principles of religion which involve grave obli- 
gation and are armed with eternal penalties, these we hold 
in mind, and sternly observe them. But it is different 
with God's counsels — the free invitations of our Master 
to the nobler ways of love. And yet are the principles which con- 
cern not the salvation but the perfection of the soul less prac- 
tical, less true that we should hold them only speculatively? 
How great a difference the threat of penalties makes in our 
acceptance of God's truth as a rule of life ! 

Here is a question both curious and critical. How much 
is one's progress hindered by persistence in some single un- 
mortified practice, such as by full indulgence of appetite at 
table, by waste of time and of mental force in newspaper read- ' 
ing, or by long talks with favorites? What effect has any one 
of these practices (for a congestion of them all means a hope- 
less spiritual malady) on such essential conditions as purity of 
intention, or love of prayer, or zeal for souls? According to 
spiritual writers such unmortification, if of frequent occurrence, 



28 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



blocks advance all along the line and threatens retrogression. 
To serve God perfectly one must practice vigilance with a par- 
ticularity bordering on fanaticism. Thus in the old law, when 
God laid down rules for the Nazarites, He forced extravagant 
observances on them; they were not only to abstain from in- 
toxicants, but " they shall not drink vinegar of wine, or of any 
other drink, nor anything that is pressed out of the grape; nor 
shall they eat grapes either fresh or dried " (Numb. vi. 3). 

Holy living is seldom achieved per saltum — by one quick leap 
from the earthly into the heavenly character. This or that virtue 
may rise suddenly into maturity, but even this is rarely the case. 
The habit of responsiveness to God's working within us is of 
gradual, often imperceptible, growth. Allowing for exceptional 
cases of prodigies of grace in those destined for canonization, the 
Psalmist's teaching is of universal application : " In his heart 
he hath disposed to ascend by steps in the vale of tears, in the 
place which he hath chosen. For the Lawgiver shall give a bless- 
ing; they shall go from virtue to virtue" (Ps. lxxxiii. 6, 7, 8). 
Through the vale of tearful penance, along roads of the Law- 
giver's often mysterious selection, now'by the beaten track of 
common practice, again by the secluded bypath of peculiar 
guidance, one spends his days and his years in this career, sel- 
dom pleasing to flesh and blood; never without joy to the spirit, 
because it is always an upward way, and the touch of the divine 
Hand is never absent. 

The dignity of character, generated by this search for God 
is shown by the content of the soul with divine things alone. 
No one in the world is so independent of the frenzies of our 
fallen nature; no one so clearly reckons the true values of 
existence; no one has the divine standpoint so easy of access. 
They who strive after the better things are the real leaders of 
mankind. These stout-hearted champions of peace and of mu- 
tual affection, and of the sorrows of the Crucified, always win 
disciples. St. Teresa affirms that perfect souls never go alone 
to heaven. 



APPROVING THE BETTER THINGS 29 

This class of souls, valiant for God and patient 
with men, possess all things; they are God's favorites, 
and through them He lavishes His gifts upon the more 
faint-hearted masses. " And I will give them a heart to know 
Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people and I 
shall be their God; because they shall return to Me with their 
whole heart" (Jer. xxiv. 7). St. Alphonsus used to say that he 
would not have anyone about him who was not endeavoring to 
become a saint. How much more shall God Himself select 
warm-hearted, disinterested, energetic friends for His close asso- 
ciates in the government of other men's lives. John Tauler 
is never tired of saying that God made all things for the perfect. 



IV. 



BANDED TOGETHER FOR PERFECTION. 

St. Francis de Sales, distinguishing between classes and 
states of life, and the graces of advancement in the practice of 
virtue that God bestows upon souls, says : 

" The motive of divine love pours forth a particular in- 
fluence of perfection upon the virtuous actions of those who have 
in a special manner dedicated themselves to God to serve Him 
forever. Such are bishops and priests, who by a sacramental 
consecration, and by a spiritual character which cannot be effaced, 
vow themselves as marked and branded serfs, to the perpetual 
service of God; such are religious, who by their vows, either 
solemn or simple, are immolated to God in quality of living and 
reasonable sacrifices; such are those who betake themselves to 
pious congregations, dedicating themselves forever to God's 
glory; further, such are all those who of set purpose produce 
deep and strong resolutions of following the will of God, making 
for this end retreats of some days, that they may stir up their 
souls by divers spiritual exercises to the entire reformation of 
their life " (The Love of God, Book XII., ch. viii.). 

Those whom God has favored with a call to community life, 
do not therefore despise the layman's holiness ; not seldom, as in 
the notable case of St. Teresa, they take counsel about things 
divine with God's servants living in the world. " One Lord, one 
faith, one baptism," teaches the Apostle, " one God and Father of 
all, Who is above all and through us all, and in us all. But to 
every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the 
giving of Christ " (Eph. iv. 5, 7) . In exact accord with this early 
Christian teaching is that of our present Holy Father, Pius X. 
In (we believe) his very first encyclical, he exhorts the priest- 

(30) 



BANDED TOGETHER FOR PERFECTION 31 



hood to devote themselves to their own perfection with absolute 
earnestness. But the Holy Father introduces this by saying that 
all classes " are included in the exhortation 'to advance towards 
the perfect man, in the measure of the age of the fullness of 
Christ' " (Eph. iv. 13) — and only then does the sovereign pon- 
tiff enlarge on the superior vocation of the priesthood. A con- 
trary spirit was rebuked by our Savior when He said to the 
Jews, great boasters that they were of their descent from the 
patriarchs : " God is able of these stones to raise up children 
to Abraham " (Matt. iii. 9) . How often do we meet with men and 
women in the Lives of the Saints placed low as to state of 
life, and yet high as to personal holiness. " It is better to be 
fervent in a state less perfect, than to be lukewarm in one more 
exalted," is a saying of the Abbot John, one of the Fathers of 
the Desert. Who would wish that St. Louis of France had been 
a priest? As a prince among princes he shed over the whole 
world the brightness of Christ's gospel — and yet had a wife and 
a large family of children, was an active statesman and 
an energetic soldier. Argument by contrast between one's own 
and another's condition is seldom fair ; and it is always a menace 
to charity. Perfect love of God is a totally hidden, indeed an 
unrevealable, personal condition. St. Catherine of Genoa, a mar- 
ried woman and then a widow, who never left the world, speaks 
of the fullness of God's call to her and says : " I then gave the 
keys of the house to love, with full power to do all things that 
were necessary. I took no heed of body or soul, friends, rela- 
tions or the world; but of all that the law of love required, I took 
care that the least part should not be wanting" (Life, ch. xxx.). 
St. Hedwige, duchess of Poland, when her husband died put on 
the religious habit, and lived in a monastery in obedience to her 
daughter, who was abbess there. " Nevertheless, by God's will," 
says Alban Butler, "St. Hedwige never made any monastic vows." 
Next to the apostolic state is that of martyrdom. Now the 
Roman Breviary says of St. Romuald, that " he burned with the 
desire of martyrdom, and that he journeyed towards Panonia 



32 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



to obtain that crown, but was compelled by a fit of sickness to 
return again." St. Francis of Assisi was refused the same favor, 
though he penetrated to the heart of Mohammedanism. Were 
either of these less holy personally because he failed to gain the 
state of martyrdom? Or rather did he not obtain the martyr's 
merit by inward desire, while failing to secure the outward 
crown by the shedding of his blood? These and multitudes of 
others like them were held back by God in a lower state of per- 
fection without any lessening of personal perfection. " It is an 
error, or rather a heresy," says St. Francis de Sales, " to say that 
devotion is incompatible with the life of a soldier, a tradesman, 
a prince, or a married woman. It is true, Philothea, that a de- 
votion purely contemplative, monastical, and religious cannot 
be exercised in those vocations: but besides these three kinds of 
devotion, there are several others proper to conduct to perfec- 
tion those who live in the secular state " {Introduction to a 
Devout Life, Part I., ch. iii.). 

Let us praise the perfect wherever they are found — and they 
are everywhere. They are God's elect by a peculiarly sacred 
title. Their vision is clear, they understand events, and rate 
persons from the divine standpoint. They see God's plan in the 
world's happenings as in an open book, adoring God's wisdom 
in their sources and causes. Their love is true, whether they 
cling to God in the sweet silence of the convent, or in the whirl of 
the marts of trade. They love all good things in God, the Su- 
preme Good. Let them mutually and universally praise one an- 
other's states of life, and adore the graces which generate the 
virtues of each. Wherever they are placed, they are the strong 
ones of the world, the only ones who can say in entire truth: 
"I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength" (Ps. xvii. i). Yet 
there is no manner of doubt that the difference between states of 
perfection is in some ways essential. And the life in community 
fully deserves the high praises we shall now bestow on it. 

Life in community is the ideal association of love and law in 
God's service; for as the greatest commandment is love (Matt. 



BANDED TOGETHER FOR PERFECTION 33 



xxii. 37), so can a religious by reason of his vows now say to 
God: "Thy law is in the midst of my heart " (Ps. xxxix. 9). 
By the rule of poverty God is loved with detachment from 
earthly allurements. Religious obedience roots one's motives in 
God's will, and while not smothering initiative, cleanses it of 
self-conceit. Chastity is ever confronted with its models in 
Jesus and Mary and Joseph, and perfectly well safeguarded 
from danger. The life is indeed hard, but for that very 
reason is full of merit; it is a life in the company of kindred 
spirits, stimulated by holiest emulation, and where spiritual 
direction is always accessible from guides of piety, learning, 
and experience. 

But this boon is not possessed without a struggle. Many 
must tread under foot the dearest natural ties to enter this super- 
natural garden enclosed (Cant. iv. 12). A saying of St. Cath- 
erine of Siena is here proved true : " He who does not know how 
to cut a knot, will always remain bound." When St. Aloysius' 
father at last allowed him to join the Jesuits, he said: " My son, 
thou hast cut a deep wound in my heart." How strange! our 
Savior suffered a deep wound in His heart from our mortal sins, 
yet a Christian father is cut deep by his child's heroic return 
of love to God. " Paradise was not made for cowards," says 
St. Philip Neri. Neither was that strenuous apprenticeship for 
Calvary, the religious life; though soft-natured novice>masters 
allow cowards not a few to smuggle themselves in.* 

*" God grant that those who receive unsuitable candidates may not suffer 
for it in the next world — there is always some slight pretext for thinking 
we may admit them, though in a case of such importance no excuse is valid " 
(St. Teresa, Way of Perfection, Stanbrook, ch. xiv., 2). Not only certainty of a 
candidate's lack of vocation, but even an acute doubt about it should cause his 
dismissal. The evil arises from the novice master being swayed by regard for 
the postulant's feelings, or those of his relatives ; by being dazzled with his fine 
talents, though coupled with serious eccentricity or obstinate self-will ; by the 
dream that the lapse of years will somehow or other accumulate a vocation 
in him. These and such like fallacious reasons account for the presence 
of eccentric, quarrelsome, or dead-and-alive characters in religious communi- 
ties, leading to the demoralization of the fervent and the misery of all. Close 



34 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

When the obligations of the religious state are assumed, 
they become marks of close resemblance to Christ Crucified. Rules 
and constitutions should become symbolical of the five wounds of 
the Crucified ; then it is that they tell of motives. After that, the 
service of God is at its best. One is dainty, indeed, who looks 
for sweeter peace or cleaner joy than dwells in the heart of an 
honest member of a fervent community. Newman says that 
what brings men to communion is " a thirst for the living and 
true God " — precisely the description of the mind that brings a 
true soul to the door of a convent on " the happiest day of his 
life," and keeps him within its rugged discipline of self-denial, 
developing and maturing daily the earliest impulses of grace. 

How good a religious should I be? is a bit of self-question- 
ing that is never asked without the breathing of God's spirit. 
The answer may be both human and divine. As good as a simple- 
hearted layman thinks me to be, is the human answer. The 
divine answer — dare I utter it? As good as God intended me to 
be when first He called me to perfection. But perhaps one has en- 
tered religion from worldly motives, and now after years of 
misery looks back upon the step with bitter regret for its temerity. 
Let him find in this very bitterness of regret a form of vocation, 
and the Providence which permitted a rash intrusion into the holy 
place will grant unto him a grace of benignant welcome even 
to its most favored privileges. 

It sounds paradoxical, but it is true; no one should aspire 
to active zeal for souls unless he has a drawing towards seclusion 
from them in the interior life; for religious influence must be 

observation persuades one that the exclusion of unfit subjects is the prime 
duty of novice masters, rather than the admission of worthy ones, whose 
credentials are generally written fair and broad upon their daily lives. The 
door of the house of novices should swing outward more easily than inward. 
The last letter that St. Francis Xavier wrote was to Father Gaspar Baertz, 
penned on the island of San Chan, November 13, 1553 : the Saint died Decem- 
ber 3d. We copy the last paragraph : " Pray give particular attention to what 
I am about to add : be very severe, I would almost say be most fastidious, 
in choosing persons to be received into the Society," and he instances a certain 
unworthy member by way of illustration. 



BANDED TOGETHER FOR PERFECTION 35 



-dispensed by inwardly religious spirits. Now the fruit of souls 
is garnered by those who move back and forth between men and 
their Maker, between prayer, solitude, and devout reading on 
the one hand, and instruction, edification, and correction on 
the other. The holy dispositions generated by prayer, obe- H 
dience, humility, love, must animate exterior labors for souls 
if they are to be really fruitful. Truest service of one's neighbor 
can only be given after obedience to some such heavenly command 
as drove Abbot Arsenius into the wilderness : " Arsenius, flee, 
hold thy peace, and be at rest." Where may this be obeyed except 
in a community, or in utter solitude. One should not be eager for 
acquaintance with men till he has become well acquainted with 
God — and with himself as God reveals him to himself in solitude. 
We find in the lives of the missionary saints such expressions as 
these, speaking of their earlier days : " Burned in solitude ;" " es- 
tranged from the world;" " far remote from men;" " alone with 
God." This was the prelude to those outward achievements 
which transformed men and nations from paganism into Christian 
faith and love. 

Lallemant goes far when he says (Spiritual Doctrine, p. 273, 
Faber's edition) that we must be greatly addicted to personal 
use of spiritual things before we can " go out of ourselves for 
the service of our neighbor without prejudice to our interior 
life ; not giving ourselves up wholly to others, nor applying our- 
selves to exterior occupations except by way of diversion, so to 
say; and thus our principal business shall ever be the interior 
life." Does this wise teacher mean that a religious person's time 
of prayer shall be measured like an ordinary man's time for work ? 
And shall his occupation with his neighbor's necessities be 
related to prayer like an occasional interval of relaxation? 
It would seem so. To approximate to this end, the ordering of 
the outer and inner life must be done by rule. Following St. 
Bernard, whom he quotes in approval, Lallemant compares a 
spiritual worker to a reservoir, and the unspiritual one to an 
aqueduct. The first one stores the graces he is going to dispense 



36 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



in his heart, and only when their fullness has become his own 
does he give them forth, having become to men, by his holiness, 
a wondrous grace himself. The least consideration shows the 
value of community life in facilitating this. 

Sometimes the opposition to following a vocation comes 
from within, nor does this always spring from motives quite 
unworthy. God corrects it when He pleases. When the Chris- 
tians of Milan proclaimed that Ambrose must be their bishop, 
he ran away; he fled in the night towards Pavia. 
Doubtless he knew the road well, and he traveled the 
whole night long. But when morning dawned he found himself 
back again at the very gate he had left many hours before. He 
could not run away from his divine vocation. But, alas, there 
are some whose resistance is from unworthy motives, and who 
manage by cowardly shifts to get to their Pavia and beyond, and 
to live a whole life mingled of external ease and interior self- 
reproach, renegades from a true vocation. Well does John Ruys- 
brceck say : " It is of the nature of love to be always giving and 
always receiving. The love of Jesus is, therefore, exacting and 
generous. He gives all that He has and all that He is; all that 
we have, all that we are, He takes." 

" The cowl does not make the monk," is a saying old and true. 
What then does ? Surely the original vocation of God developed 
and strengthened by time. Thus does our Lord admonish the de- 
linquent Bishop of Ephesus : " Be mindful, therefore, from 
whence thou art fallen ; and do penance, and do the first works " 
(Apoc. ii. 5). The vocation of God, sealed by His Church in re- 
ceiving the vows, is a plain mark of salvation — " the highest 
grace after baptism," to quote a somewhat extravagant and yet 
not ill-founded estimate. It may come suddenly, like dawn of 
day in the tropics, or it may grow insensibly into control during 
a long course of years. But in any case the call of God to a 
perfect life is no less than a miracle of grace. It involves 
grave responsibilities, but none too hard for fulfillment, none 
whose fulfillment is not its own reward. 



BANDED TOGETHER FOR PERFECTION 37 



Cost and compensation rule all life. Our Redeemer was the 
divine Source of merit, and yet He earned every thrill of His 
eternal joy by a pang of suffering in His earthly career: the 
glory of the God-man is a reward of merit. It was revealed to 
St. Elizabeth of Hungary by the Blessed Virgin, that although 
she was conceived immaculate, yet apart from that she did not 
receive a single grace, gift or virtue from heaven without immense 
labor, incessant prayer, fervent desires, many tears, and much 
affliction. Her vocation, or rather her unique predestination, was 
a mere boon; her perfection, considered as a way of life, was a 
hard-earned crown of glory. Now no path to glory is so splendid, 
no joy of fruition so sweet, as our Lord's and His Mother's, 
whose imitation in this, as in everything else, is the only reason 
for banding souls together into a common life. 

There is no more touching spectacle than that of a group of 
young women taking the vows of religion. Fervor then is solemn 
in its intensity, renunciation of all that the world holds dear is 
absolute, and the occasion is worthy, if any human occasion 
can be, of the presence of the Eucharistic Christ approving 
both the sacrifice of those generous souls and its acceptance by 
Holy Church. But the spirit's dedication is the true though 
hidden majesty of that veritably august function. The angels 
behold the interior Vocation: the original, awful reverence for 
the divine Spouse, coupled with tenderest love; each soul in- 
flamed with love of the immortal part of life, thrilled with un- 
speakable interest in divine things, enraptured with their beauty; 
disgusted with the world, despising its vanities and follies, which 
they incessantly compare with the soul's treasures of celestial 
wisdom; longing to begin their order's apostolate; eager to 
save the world in company with Christ Crucified. How appro- 
priate to each of these favored ones is the prophet's expression: 
" The lines are fallen unto me in goodly places ; for my inherit- 
ance is goodly to me" (Ps. xv. 6). 

Does it happen that any of these ever in course of time 
regret their vocation? Alas, it does happen. Low views of the 



33 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



order's mission creep in, soon followed by a grudging observance 
of rule. One or at most two terms of an over-indulgent Su- 
perior will fill the community with dispensations, and drop the 
weaker characters into mere denizens of the house of God, while 
the better disposed spirits are tortured with despair. Fears about 
health are soon blown into panics. Excuses are the rule, and 
even these are readily omitted, to the sad hurt of interior dis- 
positions, for the soul that feeds on dispensations soon languishes 
with inanition. Exercises purely religious are easily shifted 
aside in favor of " work," until at last the main purpose of the 
community is business and not perfection. Into a community 
such as that comes a retreat; it is literally a Godsend. It takes 
us back to our " first works ;" in renewing the vows it renews 
their spirit. 



V. 



FEAR AND LOVE. 

"Come, children, hearken to me; I will teach you the fear of God" 
(Ps. xxxiii. 12). 

No words can exaggerate the importance of that element 
of the spiritual life to which holy wisdom itself points, saying: 
Ecce principia, behold my beginnings — " The fear of the Lord is 
the beginning of wisdom" (Ecclus. i. 16). 

Religious fear is reverential awe at the thought of God, the 
almighty, all holy, all true, all good. As a moral force, the 
fear of God is a state of mind which compares one's own little- 
ness with God's infinite majesty: an overwhelming argument 
by contrast. Out of this general sense of divine majesty and 
human insignificance flow the motives which place precautions 
against sin, and secure their exact observance : " The fear of 
the Lord hateth evil" (Prov. viii. 13).* 

The relation of fear to penance is essential. I repent 
because I fear pain, and this is slavish fear. I repent because 
I fear the loss of joy, and this is called mercenary fear. I repent 
because my sins involve the loss of God's love, here is a trait of 
true friendship, and a fear almost indistinguishable from love. 
Then there is the fear of the perfect soul, a fear felt not in the 
first act of sorrow, but in the second and much later era of 
penance, by which a man trembles at the injustice he has done 

*The whole meaning of this conference may be given in the following 
words of St. Teresa : " The weapons which we may use in our most dan- 
gerous warfare against surprise, my daughters, and which His majesty has 
given us, are love and fear. Take this advice : it is not mine but your 
Teacher's — try to keep them on your journey [to perfection]. Love will 
quicken your footsteps, and fear will make you look where you will set 
your foot down, lest you should trip against the many stumbling blocks on that 
road by which all men must pass in this life. Thus armed, you will be secure 
from pitfalls" (Way of Perfection, Stanbrook, ch. xl., i). 

(39) 



40 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

to God, prescinding (as far as that may be possible) all threat 
of eternal pain, all loss of eternal joy, and with total disinter- 
estedness taking God's part against himself. Thus the perfect 
Christian becomes the confidential servant o± religious fear, 
while the imperfect Christian remains always its drudge. 

The soul's love of God is in its inspiration to loyal 
service, by which it is influenced interiorly to be and to act as 
a true child of the divine Father advancing His kingdom; 
this is called the love of benevolence or of well wishing. 
The love of complaisance or delectation is that wherein 
our only true joy is that divine sweetness which we 
feel in thoughts of our heavenly Father's power and goodness, 
and His infinite love for us. Now this loyalty to God and this 
joy in Him are, be it remembered, directed to His divine Son, 
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, " For in Flim dwelleth all the 
fullness of the Godhead corporeally" (Col. ii. 9). Our mo- 
tives for loving God are many, and each of them has its 
peculiar value. But the supreme motive is God's love-worthiness. 
This alone is purely disinterested. Yet both nature and grace 
demand a recompense, for an oblation so supreme as perfect 
love, and St. Teresa tells us what that recompense is : " We have 
many motives to love; but they are all grounded on this good 
foundation, the hope of being rewarded by a return of love " 
{Way of Perfection, ch. xl.). O God, how precious is my love 
of Thee, since it wins Thy love for me! 

Out of this very loyalty springs the sharpest fear 
known to devout souls. For as Tertullian says : " How 
can one love God without fearing that he shall cease to love 
Him?" There comes a time in the life of every man who 
is destined to be perfect, when hell's worst torments seem 
nothing in comparison with the feeling that oppresses him. 
the dread lest he shall give up loving God. This is the final 
purgation of his spirit. This awful fearfulness is the cry of 
the holy man Job : " I have always feared God as waves swelling 
over me, and His weight I was not able to bear " (Job xxxi. 23). 



FEAR AND LOVE 



4i 



A calm and well-grounded fear is like the first deposit 
of a rich man in the bank — the nest-egg of a great fortune. 
But this is not the speechless fear of the panic-stricken Apostles 
at our Savior's Transfiguration (Matt. xvii. 2) ; nor the ner- 
vous dread of a scrupulous soul ; nor the despairing fear of a 
reprobate. Christian fear, says St. Francis de Sales, is more 
distressed about the danger of losing God's love than the risk 
of going to hell.* 

Not only is fear a faithful servant of love, but it 
serves equally all other virtues. It stands ready to guard 
the virtue of faith with its sentinels, preventing the intrusion of 
doubts and of alien opinions. He who fears God in his heart cher- 
ishes His words in his mind. The virtue of faith being an 
infused certitude excludes fear of error; the virtue of fear, as 
the sentinel of faith, is a true estimate of the tendencies to error 
innate in human nature. The more one fears his mental in- 
stability, the less need he fear lapsing from the truth of Christ. 

*St. Francis Xavier's profession of disinterested love of Christ beautifully 
expresses this noblest of all human emotions, whether it be called love or fear : 
" My God I love Thee, not to gain 
The bliss of Thy eternal reign, 
Nor to escape the fiery lot 
Reserved for those who love Thee not. 
Thou, Thou, my Jesu, on the tree 
Didst in Thine arms encompass me. 
" Thou didst endure the nails, the lance, 
Disgraces manifold, the trance 
Of bloody sweat, the boundless seas 
Of bitterness and anguishes ; 
Nay even death's last agony ; 
And this for me — for sinful me ! 
Most loving Jesu, shall this move 
No like return of love for love? 
"Above all things I love Thee best, 
Yet not with thought of interest ; 
Not thus to win Thy promised land, 
Not thus to ward Thy threatening hand ; 
But as Thou lov'st me, so do I 
Love, and shall ever love — and why? 
Because Thou art my God and King, 
The source and end of everything." 



42 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



It is not in the glare of day that man understands the heavens — 
the astronomer studies light from the midst of darkness. 
So do we know the greatness of God's truth better by humble 
meditation on our own puniness of intellect, than by directly 
contemplating the infinitude of heavenly wisdom. He who 
fears God in faith has little intellectual trouble to reckon with. 

In its relation to the divine virtue of hope, religious fear 
strips our confidence in God of the illusion of merit. It has 
been truly said that we must die with our head between two 
pillows. One is the avowal that we deserve nothing but hell; 
the other a perfect trust in the mercy of God, Whose power to 
save is infinite, and Whose promise to save is sealed with the 
blood of Calvary. Fear and hope are well coupled in our great 
Psalm of hope, the De Profundis: " If Thou, O Lord, wilt mark 
iniquities, Lord, who shall stand it? For with Thee there is 
merciful forgiveness" (Ps. cxxix. 3, 4). The more I fear the 
rising gale of temptation, the more glad am I to feel my ship 
swaying calmly on the anchor chain of hope. Too many 
good Christians, however, allow their fears to overshadow 
their hopes ; we hear persons of ripened virtue expressing doubts 
of their eternal salvation, and they think that timid state of 
mind to be pleasing to God. Not so; for our fear should 
be concerned with our own weakness, and should be coupled 
with a feeling of confidence in God's strength. Nor should 
we forget that love, and love alone, is the virtue that crowns our 
eiforts as well as sanctifies them, even though we must work out 
our " salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. ii. 12). For St. 
Paul admonishes us : " You have not received the spirit of bond- 
age again unto fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption 
of sons, whereby we cry: Abba (Father) " (Rom. viii. 15). 

Relegated to its proper place of subjection to love, fear 
is a mighty help. Our Savior once said to St. Catherine of Siena : 
" Holy fear is the guardian of the soul." Every spiritual man 
has his moments of misgiving, either as to the validity of 
his repentance for past sins, or as to God's granting him the 



FEAR AND LOVE 



43 



grace of final perseverance. All may be settled by such questions 
as these: Do you dread offending God? Are you anxious and 
distressed lest He abandon you ? If so, then all is well. Fear at 
its worst is the gloomy vigil of the high festival of love, whose 
joy is enhanced by contrast with the preceding sadness of fear. 
Yet this sadness sometimes haunts the deathbed of saints. 
Arsenius, a venerable Father of the desert, wept as he felt death 
approaching, though he had given up his place at court as tutor 
to the sons of Theodosius the Great, and had lived fifty-five 
years in the solitude of Egypt. His associates chided him: 
"Father, do you weep? Are you, like others, afraid to die?" 
The saint answered : " I am seized with a great fear ; nor has this 
dread of death ever been absent from me since I first came into 
this wilderness." Yet when death actually came it found him 
in great peace and full of confidence in God. 

To the mass of Christians the fear of God serves as the 
main element in religion, but not without much admixture of 
love. And the wider the door of fear the easier the 
entrance of love. The more terrified a vile sinner shows him- 
self in confession, the more lovingly is he treated by his Father 
confessor, who in this but imitates the gentleness of God. Depth 
of fear is a sign of fitness for absolution, though the penitent 
has been thrice dyed in guilt — for absolution and for Holy Com- 
munion, which is possession of the all-lovely and all-loving 
God. How holy is religious fear, since it invites divine love to 
come down upon it, and never invites in vain. Upon a reasonable 
and religious fear of God, a tender grace of love descends by an 
eternal predestination. St. Chrysostom says : " He who fears 
God has indeed an iron chain about his neck; but as he learns 
to love God, these fetters are found gradually changing into a 
4 golden necklace." 

To the elite of Christians not fear but the love of God is 
the main element in religious existence. And it is very con- 
sciously so in those who are professedly striving for perfection, 
especially love for our Lord Jesus Christ. But the more surely 



44 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



they know they possess it, the more closely do they call fear to 
their side, lest their heads should be turned by vainglory, or 
the enemy should catch them napping. They realize that they 
"have this treasure in earthen vessels" (2 Cor. iv. 7). As the 
ordinary Christian's timidity is heartened by love, so the loving 
Christain's security is tempered by fear. In some such way as 
gold is coined with an alloy, a baser but tougher metal, 
which fits it for hard everyday usage. This does not degen- 
erate into scrupulous fear, which is the quaking of a soul whose 
nerves have overpowered its good sense : " There have they 
trembled with fear where there was no fear" (Ps. Hi. 6). The 
good Christian's fear is based rather on his vivid realization 
that for all he has and all he is, he is indebted to God. 
As he loves ardently, he fears reasonably, crying out to God con- 
stantly: " I will keep Thy justifications; O do not Thou utterly 
forsake me" (Ps. cxviii. 8). St. Philip Neri began each day 
with this aspiration: " O Lord, keep Thy hand upon Philip 
this day, or Philip will betray Thee." He had no other fear 
but fear of God, a trait of all maturely sanctified Christians. 

Who indeed is a truly courageous man but a man in whom 
the fear of God is so strong that there is no room for any other. 
As to human fear, Pere Boudon is spokesman for the more 
advanced spirits : " In order to be firmly established in a divine 
place which devils and men cannot disturb, we must (to express 
it in a few words) fear nothing and hope nothing from any 
created being" (Devotion to the Angels, Part II., ch. iii.). 
Nothing is so barren as the fear of men; nothing so fruitful as 
the fear of God, except the love of Him. Human fear is close 
to hatred of men, while religious fear is akin to love of God. 
St. Francis Xavier wrote home from the Indies : " Dangers, 
labors and the like, which my timid friends vie with one another 
to persuade me are formidable, I count as naught. I 
laugh at them all in full security, and the simple fear of God 
alone extinguishes in me all fear of His creatures " (Life of 
Coleridge, vol. ii., p. 96). 



FEAR AND LOVE 



45 



The mingling of fear and love makes what is called reverence. 
It is a blend of virtues productive of the readiness and quietude of 
obedience. For many years of a life of perfection — taking men 
generally — reverence for God will be the best that the soul can 
do by way of love, or at least by way of proving to itself its 
love for God. If any poor creature but knew God well and 
knew itself only a little, it would hardly dare to say with full 
stress of meaning: O my God, I love Thee; but rather: O my 
God, I reverence Thee. A sweet reverence, indeed, but that 
rather than pure love. As long as we are here we must at close 
intervals be distressed with the thought of penance undone and 
of our latent weaknesses. This feeling need only be inter- 
mittent. But the warning of St. Paul is peremptory : " He who 
thinketh himself to stand, let him him take heed lest he fall " 
(i Cor. x. 12). Love, to be distinctly and solely itself, must 
be integral, absolutely perfect. Of that love St. John says: 
" Perfect love driveth out fear" (1 John iv. 18). And where is 
that perfect love to be found? In heaven alone, though the 
saints have enjoyed its undisputed reign for occasional and brief 
intervals. In heaven there is indeed perfect love, and yet, if 
we dare use the expression, even there love honors fear by using 
its holy formalities of awe and reverence, as the blessed man 
Job tells of the highest angels : " The pillars of heaven tremble 
and dread at His beck" (Job xxvi. 11). Inanimate nature 
(to use an illustration) in woodland and stream, sky and ocean, 
seldom gives us an unmixed and wholly elementary color; but 
rather an infinite gradation of colors and neutral tints, one ele- 
mentary color blending or shading off into another. So all of 
our virtues here below are by the grace of God mingled one 
with another ; and no two are so inseparably graded and shaded 
lighter or darker, one into the other, than the love of God's 
goodness and the fear of His justice. 

In human affairs fear is the mother of prudence. In spirit- 
ual affairs it is the mother of prudence applied to a divine end, 
and transfigured with divine light: " The fear of the Lord is 



4 6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



the beginning of wisdom" (Ecclus. i. 16). Though the last 
in the list of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and the lowest in essen- 
tial quality, the fear of God is first in order of time, and is in- 
troductory to all the others. Study for a moment and see how 
wise is fear. For the opposite of religious fear is presumption 
and misuse of God's mercy, trusting to be saved without keep- 
ing God's law ; it is defiance and contempt of God in His dearest 
attribute of pity for sinners. Certainly an attempt to outwit 
God is the uttermost limit of folly. On the other hand, the de- 
generacy of religious fear is despair of God's mercy, by which 
one persuades himself that his power of sinning is superior to 
God's power of forgiving. Could unwisdom go farther than 
this ? It began with Cain : " My iniquity is greater than that 
I may deserve pardon" (Gen. iv. 13); it was perfected 
in Judas Iscariot : " I have sinned in betraying innocent blood 

and he went and hanged himself with a halter" (Matt. 

xxvii. 4, 5). Measure the holiness of religious fear by the 
malice of the opposite vices. 

Take the lowest grade of religious fear and see how wise it is, 
namely, utterly slavish fear (timor serviliter servilis). It moves 
away from sin reluctantly, and only because it dreads the fire 
of hell ; it is not childish but slavish. It looks not to God at all, 
or scarcely at all; it is flight from pain, that and nothing more. 
Now one would imagine that such a brutish fear could have no 
place in religion. But such is not the case, for vast numbers of 
brutalized men by it set forth to paradise. In the beginning 
more afraid of the devil than of God, they are nevertheless 
in a mood in which they will listen to God's messengers. 
Holy Church is much engaged in arousing any fear of the penal- 
ties due to sin. Mere terror — when founded on truth and 
flying towards God — mere terror is the beginning of wisdom. 
Even saints have never been above threatening themselves with 
hell fire when they were struggling with powerful temptation. 

Both the heroic Christian and the newly converted 
murderer use the same formulas in the confessional, the Con- 



FEAR AND LOVE 47 

fiteor and the act of contrition, containing words of sorrow 
for fear of judgment and hell, mingled with the loftiest motives 
of disinterested love. Every fear of God or of God's penalties, 
however low, gropes towards the soul's safest goal and dearest 
need — divine love. We have spent much of our priestly life 
preaching missions to Catholics, and, as a spokesman of mis- 
sionaries, we affirm that arousing fear of the lowest sort is in the 
end productive of the highest motives of contrition, and in 
uncounted cases is absolutely necessary to secure repentance.* 

Listen to a signal of danger given by St. Teresa to her 
nuns : " Another very treacherous temptation is a feeling of 
confidence, that we shall never relapse into our former faults or 
care for worldly pleasures again. We say to ourselves: Now 
I know what the world is, that all it contains passes away, and 
I care more for divine things. This temptation is the most 
dangerous of all, especially at the beginning of the religious life; 
for such souls, feeling that they are safe, do not guard them- 
selves against occasions of sin. Unforeseen obstacles arise in their 
path, and God grant that they may not fall lower than ever before, 
and if they do fall, that they may rise again " ( Way of Perfection, 
Stanbrook, ch. xxxix., 5). 

Consider how under the old law the almost universal title to 
divine favor was in fearing God; and fear was a second name 
for love itself, as well as for faith and for hope. God said to 
Abraham after the sacrifice of Isaac — an act renowned as one of 
mingled faith and hope : " Now I know that thou f earest God, 
and hast not spared thy only-begotten son for My sake " 

♦Among his fellow missionaries the present writer, who had for 
a long time the privilege of calling souls to repentance, used to hear it 
said that the ideal band of missionaries is composed, first, of one whose 
sermons are the thunders of Sinai ; the mountain quakes, the sky is lurid 
with God's wrath, sinners are beside themselves with terrors. Second, one 
who is the perfection of kindness, his very appearance and the tones of his 
voice, to say nothing of the divine sweetness of his words, inviting the 
frightened sinner to his counsel and comfort as if to the embrace of Christ 
Himself. Third, one who is the familiar instructor in Catholic doctrine, and 
in the preparation needed for receiving the sacraments. 



4 8 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



(Gen. xxii. 12). "Hast thou considered," said God to Satan, 
" My servant Job, that there is none like him in the 
earth, a simple and upright man, and fearing God and avoiding 
evil?" (Job i. 8). Yet this noble character was a man of deep 
love, as he proved by many terrible trials. Indeed all the ancient 
dispensation was founded on fear, and its heroes were formed 
by that virtue, though not without a generous admixture of love. 
And it was in the interests of this holy virtue of fear that the 
Church of the new law, though so overflowing with love in 
every aim and motive of life, yet chose for her public worship 
prayers, for the most part, taken from the Hebrew scriptures, 
instinct with fear, yet generative of love. 

Look at our Savior's life. His birth fills us with joy. His 
death is the very inspiration of fear. As He set forth to redeem 
us, " He began to fear and to be heavy" (Mark xiv. 33). His 
Resurrection is indeed a marvelous triumph, yet it spread even 
among His friends an awe so deep as to resemble terror. His 
longest prophecy tells of His second coming, filling all the tribes 
of the earth with dread alarm (Matt. xxiv. 30). How 
many times St. Paul in his epistles mentions and sometimes 
discourses at length of the terrors of God's judgment, 
speaking always to saints and to sinners indiscriminately. 
In civic life when a nation has nothing to fear, and 
its citizens are wealthy and free from danger, they gradually 
become addicted to idleness and luxury. Then the wiser spirits 
are filled with forebodings. Degeneracy is soon apparent, and 
cowardice and venality, followed by loss of liberty, and finally of 
wealth itself. So it is with the kingdom of the soul. Fear, 
while it is servile, is barren of real virtue ; but as long as it lasts, 
even as servile, it hinders relapse into vice. It is a notable thing 
that when Adam was in a state of original justice, filled with 
love's best gifts, the Creator placed fear as the stated motive 
of his obedience : " In whatsoever day thou shalt eat of that 
tree, thou shalt die the death " (Gen. ii. 17). It was against fear 
that he struggled when he sinned, as well as against love. As 



FEAR AND LOVE 



49 



with Adam, so with every sinner; the reason of his downfall is 
that at a certain point he says, I need not be afraid. 

Servile fear is no honor to God; for what father feels 
honored by his son's dread of the rod ? Yet it is the beginning of 
salvation ; for though the fear is a slave's fear, yet it is felt by a 
son — one who knows of a better fear, a filial fear, and longs 
to grow worthy of its reverence and its love. Genuine penance, 
full of painful thoughts of retribution, is a condition precedent 
to all grades of love of God in a race bowed down under the 
guilt of sin. No man may ask for love without offering fear in 
exchange, much fear, fear rightly prized. A good man who has 
intervals when he quails before God, who has a greater fear of 
God than a coward has of death — has it and is glad of it — such 
a man is nigh to perfection. And in the worst sinner's heart 
there is a dormant fear of God — unless he be already reprobate. 
Awaken that dormant servile fear into activity, let it become 
the motive of some religious act, even some timid longing towards 
virtue, some panic flight from the dark abyss, and you have 
helped him to his first step to heaven. To facilitate that, to 
scare sinners into it, or allure them towards it, is one of the 
divinest vocations. It is a grace perfectly Christ-like to be able 
to blanch the cheek of a wicked man with a dread of eternity 
based on the lowest motives. A haunting terror, a blind panic, 
is the gift of God to millions of souls, not the best, indeed, but 
the best they are capable of. To add to this the sentiment of love 
is a power and a privilege of an infinitely higher order, but not 
more necessary, not at all so difficult. Fear is needed to begin with, 
love is needed to finish the good work. "The mercy of the Lord is 
from eternity and unto eternity upon those that fear Him" (Ps. 
cii. 17). Mercy and grace, and all forms of heavenly love, descend 
into the fearful heart, as the good seed falls upon ground cut 
by the plough and torn by the harrow. O my soul, cherish fear 
as a mark of love's predestination, for fear is granted thee for 
love's sake. " Know thyself," says St. Bernard, " that thou 
mayest fear God; know Him that thou mayest also love Him." 



VI. 



MORTAL SIN, OR THE HOLY WAR. 

"Who will justify him that sinneth against his own soul? And who 
will honor him that dishonoreth his own soul?" (Ecclus. x. 32.) 

Notice one whose blood is bad, and see the blotches here and 
there on his skin. Notice another who has the smallpox; there 
are indeed blotches here and there; but he has a deadly disease, 
whereas the other has only some passing taint in his blood. 
Such is the difference between careless Christians and those who 
are in the state of mortal sin. Venial sin is a light offense 
against God, and mortal sin is a deadly one, a violation of God's 
Taw in a serious matter, willful and deliberate. Remember well 
this difference, so essential ; fully the difference between careless 
friendship and deadly animosity. For in meditating on mortal 
sin we must guard against scruples about venial sins. 

The term mortal as here used well expresses the truth; 
for a knowing and willful disobedience of God's commandments 
in a serious matter is a death-dealing stroke upon the soul- 
it is soul suicide. A sinner may be externally the picture of life ; 
our Savior says that spiritually he is " full of dead men's bones 
and all filthiness " (Matt, xxiii. 27). O thanks be to God that 
He says no such thing of us ! And yet it behooves us to remem- 
ber the wickedness of our former days, to lament certain 
woeful events of the past, and to exclaim : " The sins of my youth 
and my ignorances, remember not, O Lord" (Ps. xxiv. 7). 
Furthermore, our retreat is not wholly for ourselves, and we must 
open our hearts to that vast multitude of men and women 
whose entire lives are an unbroken succession of grievous sins: 
apostates and blasphemers and profaners of Jesus Christ in His 
sacraments; drunkards and adulterers and wretches whose senT 

(50) 



MORTAL SIN, OR THE HOLY WAR 



5i 



suality is nameless ; thieves and murderers ; corruptors of youth ; 
men and women who having the true faith of God yet never go 
to Mass, nor ever dream of their Easter duty; others who for 
money and vanity willfully and gladly live without God in this 
world (Eph. ii. 12) and without hope; and others again who 
of set purpose sin on and on, cherishing a dreadful assurance 
of going to heaven notwithstanding. O shall we not dwell with 
sorrow upon their wickedness, all these teeming millions of our 
fellowmen, and offer up most fervent prayers for their salvation? 

They are under God's anathema. And even His inanimate 
creatures, could they be capable of it, would unite to destroy them. 
The earth would say: The sinner is duller and deader than 
I am, for I smile towards my Maker with my tiers of flowers 
and my green hills, and he blasphemes his Maker: would that 
I could swallow him up. The rocks would say: His heart is 
harder than we are; for it is written that at the death of the 
Son of God to atone for this man's sins " the rocks were rent " 
(Matt, xxvii. 51), and his heart is proof against any spasm of 
sorrow: would that we could fall upon him and crush him. 
The serpents would say : would that we could sting him to death ; 
for his poison is deadlier than ours, for ours kills only the body, 
and his evil example and foul words kill immortal souls. 

Think of the injury sinners have done to Christ Crucified. 
The whole worth of Calvary was theirs, the agony and death of 
Christ was for them, the pity of His heart, the plea of His soul 
to His Father, all was for them. And they so little regard all 
this that they have sinned and do yet sin, as if their very pur- 
pose was by constancy in vice to make the death of Jesus Christ 
as vain and useless as that of any beast, crucifying again and 
over again " the Son of God in their hearts, and making a 
mockery of Him" (Heb. vi. 6). What a spectacle confronts 
us as we look over the masses of mankind. Immense numbers 
of them born into this world for God's service and instructed 
how to honor Him, yet turn away from Him by mortal sin, 
live like animals their whole lives long, die wickedly, and are 



52 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



finally buried in hell. Are we not born into this world, and called 
to holiness of life by a miraculous vocation to pray, to suffer 
and labor our whole lives long, to save them from that eternal 
doom? 

When we say that the soul in mortal sin is dead, we speak 
figuratively; and yet the Apostle's words have a literal force: 
" She that liveth in pleasures is in death while she liveth " ( I Tim. 
v. 6) ; for grievous sin is death and life in a monstrous union. 
It is as if the soul were an electric force injected into a corpse 
to make it move about like a live man. For the actions of such 
a body would have as much meaning to really living men as the 
actions of a wicked soul have to the angels of God. What but 
death is in the life of a bad man? Surely his curses are the 
language of that abode of eternal death, Gehenna; and all his 
foul conduct is the forecast of the misery of the deep pit. 
Grievous sin is called mortal or deathly, because death is its 
penalty. To turn from God is to turn from life. On account 
of mortal sin, the crime of betrayal of the heavenly Father, the 
ban of death was launched at the beginning. For what said Eve 
to the tempter ? " The fruit of the tree which is in the midst 
of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat, 
and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die " (Gen. iii. 3). 
The moment a wicked deed is done, eternal death hovers over its 
victim. Every step, though it be in the whirl of the giddy dance, 
is nearer the judgment hall of God — how horrible that a man 
on the way to that judgment hall should add sin to sin at every 
step! The death penalty awaits him as he lies down to sleep, 
and it dogs his footsteps as he rises and goes about his daily 
work and play; and from his death chamber, as from the con- 
demned cell of a murderer, his soul is dragged to the abode of 
the second and the eternal death (Apoc. xx. 14). 

Consider the blindness of sinners, how their passions cloud 
their reason. For they are absorbed in vicious joys to that 
degree that they forget that they are insulting God to His face. 
A holy man once hearing a vile wretch blaspheming God, struck 



MORTAL SIN, OR THE HOLY WAR 



him in the face. " Why did you strike me ? " cried the blas- 
phemer. " Because you insulted my Father." He answered : 
" But I do not know your Father." And the saint answered : 
" God against Whom you have sinned is my Father." So should 
we feel about all sinners, only that pity rather than indignation 
should overpower us. Well does the prophet exclaim on the 
part of God: " If then I be a Father, where is My honor? and if 
I be a Master, where is My fear" (Malachias i. 6). There are 
men who cannot be pilots of ships because they are color blind ; 
they cannot tell green from blue or yellow from white. O the 
blindness of the sinner! He cannot distinguish good from evil; 
when he becomes rooted and grounded in mortal sin he is in- 
capable of preferring heaven to hell. He is incapable of under- 
standing what is meant by such expressions as ingratitude to 
God, or contempt for the cross of Christ. To him selfishness 
is superior to friendship, when the choice is between God's com- 
mandments and his own animal lusts. 

The use of reason and the committing of sin have 
begun together. The brightening of mental development 
later on has only shown them the way to fouler depths of 
wickedness. In proportion as the sinner learns of God's good- 
ness, he makes it a foil against God's justice; and so he goes 
on the more confidently in mortal sin. And presently it is said 
of him: He is dead! O the might of God has overtaken 
him ! The last warning was sent to him ; it was unheeded through 
mere habit; the fiat of divine justice followed swift and sure. 
Shall we not learn a sad, a terrible lesson from his fate? Let 
us not be above applying the prophet's words to ourselves: 
" Give ye glory to the Lord your God, before it be dark, and 
before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains; you shall 
look for light, and God will turn it into the shadow of death, and 
into darkness " (Jer. xiii. 16). Let us furthermore use no small 
part of this time of close union with God in beseeching His clem- 
ency to save the most impenitent, such as scoffers, the hard- 
hearted and hard-faced sinners, the lustful and drunken and 



54 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



blasphemous and worldly. These He will save, if we be true to 
the inspirations of His grace during this holy time, and offer up 
fervent prayers for them. 

Sin penetrates the soul as a needle does the body; for this 
will work its way for years, slowly and surely, till it pierces an 
intestine, or even the heart itself; it cannot remain stationary, 
for the muscles of the body are seldom quite at rest. In the soul's 
life no more than in the body's is there rest. Every wakeful 
moment is a busy moment of thought of affection or aver- 
sion, and of good or evil purpose — every moment until death. 
Death is the first moment of stillness. 

Jeremias the prophet reproaches the reprobates of his day 
that "they have not known how to blush;" for shameless- 
ness in sinning is a well-known deeper depth of wickedness. 
And the prophet adds : " Therefore shall they fall among them 
that fall" (Jer. viii. 12). Yet multitudes are positively vain 
of their mortal sins, and he that boasts of the most numerous 
and the darkest dyed is a prince among God's enemies. Such 
souls have lost the sense of difference between good and bad, 
and they look upon God's commandments as so many 
hindrances to the only joy of their lives — committing mortal 
sin. No delusion is more fatal than that Catholic faith may be 
counted on to remain true and intact after a prolonged course 
of vice has corrupted the heart. Gross self-indulgence, 
when rooted in habits of several years standing, causes 
the sinner gradually to make little of Christian prin- 
ciples. It is as common as it is amazing to find men shamefully 
vicious, who are at the same time bloated with intellectual 
conceit. They demand exact reasons for the plainest axioms of 
morality, whilst they wallow in the most degraded sensuality. 
The hot ferment of animal passions in the lower nature deposits 
a distillation of poisonous errors in their mind. We come across 
sinners who argue against a virtuous life even on their deathbeds. 

And some of these have fallen from high places, just as did 
Lucifer at the beginning of all sinfulness; of whom our Lord 



MORTAL SIN, OR THE HOLY WAR 



55 



says: " I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven" (Luke 
x. 18) . The same, alas, may be said of some men and women — 
let us not ignore the dreadful truth — who fall like Satan and 
like Judas from places near to God. Every Christian is a mem- 
ber of heaven's nobility, being even in this life a citizen of the 
heavenly Jerusalem, a companion of " many thousands of the 
angels" (Heb. xii. 22). But some among us are favored above 
others ; these are in the higher and holier vocations. How deep 
is the malice that causes them to become traitors to Jesus Christ 
even in the cloister and the sanctuary. And as Satan fell, so 
such a one is destined to fall swift as lightning, to become a citizen 
of hell and a fellow-citizen of reprobates and demons forever. 
Yes, he who sins amid divine things passes into the slavery of 
the evil one rather from heaven than from earth. He is cast 
forth from the close company and the intimate friendship of 
Jesus Christ, stripped not of the ordinary privileges of the 
Christian state, but of those angelic prerogatives of which he was 
so utterly unworthy. 

One hardly knows what mortal sin is till he realizes that 
it makes him a slave of the evil one. Riches, pleasures, honors, 
these are the prizes of Satan's school, nay, they are the very coun- 
tersigns of his fearful warfare against God. What nation but 
is caught by such war cries as wealth and dominion? What 
good Christian but is deafened by them, and, alas, sorely tempted 
by them. Men under Satan's spell too often rule the 
world as if they were its creators. Men are willing to be the 
devil's lieutenants if they can but amass riches, or usurp do- 
minion over their fellows. Poverty, humility, patience under 
sufferings, forgiveness of injuries, and all other Christian vir- 
tues, are deemed the badges of the pusillanimous. And men hail 
as truly great only those who make the object of life the gather- 
ing of wealth and the enjoyment of the pleasures of the flesh. 

Let us never forget that Satan schemes to ruin the whole 
human race, to make all mankind enemies of their Creator, 
enemies and blasphemers of their Redeemer, just as he is himself. 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



No one is safe from his scheming, for he longs to behold all 
mankind writhing in the torments of hell, and strives to make 
each guilty wretch the author of his own downfall. In 
the courts of princes he endeavors to establish a uni- 
versal scandal of lust. In the halls of lawmakers he 
lifts up a universal banner of perjury, bribery and ambition. 
By the press he would poison public opinion with falsehood, 
and destroy whole peoples with error and vice. He works 
incessantly in families and with individuals. There is not a 
wayside hamlet but feels his malignant plottings, not an 
idler at home, or a toiler abroad, or a little schoolboy, or a 
decrepit old man, who is free from his perverse meddlings. 

Against all this array and marshalling of the evil spirits, 
the army of Jesus Christ advances. His banner is the cross, and 
His weapon is love of God and of man. Against mortal sin does 
Jesus array us, His faithful soldiers, armed with penance and 
love, humility and love, patience and love, contempt of riches and 
love, forgiveness of injuries and love, chastity and love — always 
love, love of God and of our neighbor, whatever other virtue may 
be called in to aid us. The banner of the cross is a symbol of love. 
" Behold," says the Lord God by His prophet, " I will lift up 
My hand to the Gentiles, and will set up My standard to the 
people " (Isaias xlix. 22). Under that standard we train, and at 
the beck of that divine hand, pierced for love of men, we march 
forth against mortal sin, some of us to hinder it personally, 
all of us to atone for it and to hinder it by our prayers. 
Into every family we, and those like minded with us, penetrate 
spiritually with our good angels to speak the thoughts of God. 
Into every place, high or low, do our prayers spread contrition 
for sin, love of Jesus Christ, holy hope for the future. Our 
victory over Satan and his hordes of bad men and of devils is 
assured. One of the principal ends of our retreat is to stand 
with God's holy angels yearning over this sin-stricken world, and 
praying to God for its salvation. Our fervor should be that 
of the prophet as he cries out to heaven : " All my bones shall 



MORTAL SIN, OR THE HOLY WAR 



57 



say: Lord, who is like to Thee!" (Ps. xxxix. 10.) Who is 
like to God, our God, our Savior, the Spouse of our souls. 
The answer to this noble battle shout, which was that of St 
Michael and his hosts, is its own echo in our heart's love. 
But, alas, the one who commits mortal sin finds the answer in 
his heart's depravity. Who is like to God? This woman who 
is my partner in sin, she is like to God ; this gold is become my 
God. He has passed under the dominion of the prince of sin- 
ners — the archfiend. By creation that soul was made like unto 
God (Gen. i. 26), and now he is made over again; vice is poured 
into him as a new blood into his veins, and he has become the 
image and likeness of his foul master: he is another self to the 
demon. What said our Lord of Judas Iscariot when Satan 
entered into him? "Have not I chosen you twelve? and one 
of you is a devil?" (John vi. 71.) So does every sinner pass 
from the beauty of another Christ to the hideousness of another 
Satan. 

Christian sinners are, indeed, worse than the Jews 
who preferred Barabbas to Christ. Barabbas was a bad man, 
but he did not hate Christ as Satan does, and our Savior 
was glad to die in his stead. Therefore Jesus had that thought 
to console him when the Jews preferred Barabbas to Him. 
But the wicked Christian prefers the devil to Christ. He calls 
for the demon in preference to the Son of God, commands 
Christ to begone from him, and enthrones the evil one in His 
place — a being whose malice fills hell itself with horror. With 
him the sinner now lives in closest union; gladly does he 
accept his awful suggestions of wickedness, he harbors him 
as his guest, eats, sleeps, works, and plays with him, 
and bows down to him as his lord and master. And what is 
more, this is done deliberately, this cherishing and loving 
the devil himself in place of the Son of God, whereas the Jews 
preferred Barabbas because they were half crazed with passion. 
They did not know our Lord's divinity, they had no time to 
think or take advice, being swept quickly onward by a tide of 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



frantic race hatred. The Christian sinner very deliber- 
ately introduces the devil and his works into his soul. By often 
repeated acts of perfidy he expells from it the Savior Whom 
he acknowledges to be God Himself. His treason is a cold- 
blooded betrayal of one whom he knows to be God, and from 
Whom at the end of his life he expects to obtain the happiness 
of heaven. 

O Jesus! pardon those false, those besotted hearts, and say 
over them the first words of Thy sermon from the cross, spoken 
over Thy murderers : " Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do!" (Luke xxiii. 34.) And, O Jesus, accept my 
most humble confession: I too have in my day banished Thee, 
Thou gentle King of all love and peace — I too have in my time 
banished Thee from my heart and installed the devil there. O 
my Sovereign Good, Thou didst desire to reign within my 
thoughts and affections, and I preferred that Satan and sin 
should reign there in Thy place. Why do I not weep tears of 
blood! How dare I appear before Thee after treating Thee 
thus? Pardon me, O merciful Redeemer, and pardon all other 
sinners. Bid the demon depart from them, and enter Thou 
into final possession of Thy own. 

Consider the appalling danger of hardness of heart fol- 
lowing upon a continuous course of sinfulness. The prophet 
admonishes the sinner : " By reason of the multitude of thy 
iniquities, thy sins are hardened" (Jer. xxx. 14) — packed down, 
as it were, one upon another, till tendencies and habits of sin 
become a well-beaten road. As a musician by steady practice 
learns a difficult piece until he plays it without notes, so by con- 
tinuous indulgence in vice a man finally sins almost without 
temptation. There are multitudes who sin as if God no longer 
saw them; and these are Christians! In their secret hearts 
many of them half wish that there was no God. When the 
holy man Job foreboded that he himself might fall into that 
state, he said: "If God come to me I shall not see Him; if 
He depart, I shall not understand" (Job ix. 11). Thus 



MORTAL SIN, OR THE HOLY WAR 



59 



the wicked man, persisting in his evil ways, gradually becomes 
inattentive to God's comings and goings in his life, inattentive to 
the lessons of death, to the warnings of f riends who speak in 
God's Name, regardless of God's stern whisper of remorse of con- 
science. We meet with persons who have been so long addicted 
to vice that they have no joy in anything else — virtuous con- 
duct seems the dreariest existence. What ordinary sinners do 
only at long intervals and under powerful temptation, these do 
in sheer wantonness, and continually. In fact, there are many 
who can hardly think of anything but sin. This awful state 
is not an intrusion of wickedness as sudden as it is overmastering; 
it is a growth of years. The sinner in the beginning, having done 
his first evil deed, is scared, and before repeating it he waits and 
argues and dallies. But when he falls again it is because his 
sense of guilt is already blunted. Later on sin upon sin smothers 
all sense of guilt. O let us pity those degraded men and women 
who would gladly sin their lives long, and who yet trust to die 
a happy death. Our prayers and our sacrifices will save them, 
if we but offer them in the spirit of Calvary. Let us hinder 
them and curb them by invisible but resistless graces won by 
prayer, efficacious at all times, but especially so in times of 
Retreat. 

A wound is a wound, but a neglected wound too often 
presages death, which is due not so much to the wound 
as to the neglect. In such a case the physician treats his patient 
in despair — just so a priest sometimes feels that he is dealing 
with a lost soul when administering the last sacraments 
to a sinner of a lifetime. There is a class of Christians to whom 
the admonition of a Kempis is addressed, and addressed in vain : 
" The time will come when thou wilt wish for one day or hour 
to amend, and I know not whether thou shalt obtain it " (Imita- { 
tion, Bk. L, ch. xxiii.). How can one who for years has been ever 
on the watch for new ways of vice, turn in his last moments 
a longing glance of sorrow towards God? Only one answer 
is possible : our prayers must obtain for him a miracle of pardon. 



VII. 



COST AND COMPENSATION, OR THE NECESSITY OF 

PENANCE. 

History tells us that the Emperor Theodosius caused his 
soldiers to put to death many citizens of Thessalonica under cir- 
cumstances of great cruelty. In punishment for this St. Am- 
brose, Bishop of Milan, publicly refused him entrance to the 
cathedral of that city, bidding him go and do penance. The 
emperor was deeply moved; he shut himself up in his palace, 
clothed himself in penitential garments, and devoted himself to 
austere exercises of religion in atonement for his sin. One 
of his courtiers undertook to console him. But he answered: 
" Thou little knowest the anguish I feel. I weep and bewail 
my miserable condition. The Church of God is open to slaves 
and beggars, but its doors, and consequently the gates of heaven, 
are shut against me." Only when the severity of his penance 
had proved his sincerity, did St. Ambrose admit him before the 
altar. 

This great emperor sets us a good example. It is necessary 
to do penance for our sins even after they are pardoned, nay 
long afterwards, in case our wickedness has been deep dyed, or 
long continued, or scandalous; or when our previous repent- 
ance has been shallow and followed by relapse. The holiest 
of bonds have been snapped asunder, those between a divine 
Father and His child; and when they are united, it is by a 
miracle of God's love. That miracle of pardon is His part of the 
reconciliation. Ours is first to thank Him for that great boon; 
but after that we must go into the seclusion of our heart, and 
there in deepest anguish live amid penitential thoughts and 

(60) 



COST AND COMPENSATION 61 

prayers of contrition.* Our souls are indeed at peace with our 
Maker, but wholly distressed as to the injury we have done Him 
by our sins. Among half-hearted Catholics this is a doctrine j 
hardly known and never appreciated. They too often look upon 
mortal sin as breaking a divine law, that and nothing more ; and 
they regard repentance as mending that broken law. The pro- 
cess, they agree, is painful, because it involves confession — just 
as breaking a bone is painful, and the setting of the fracture 
involves a painful wrench. But the personal relation between 
God and the sinner is frequently scarcely adverted to either in 
sinning or in repenting. The relation of Father and child, the 
Redeemer and the redeemed, is not considered. Thou hast done 
very wrong, O my soul — so does this man speak to himself — 
but if thou wilt only go to confession just this way and just 
that way, thou shalt be made innocent again. Thus religion 
becomes a sort of pious legalism : the sacrament of penance is a 
painful penalty, but it must be borne with because it is a commu- 
tation for the pains of hell. The way to get back into God's 
friendship is to be willing to be badgered by God's priest, 
threatened with eternal loss, squeezed small by the extortion of 
promises; all to be borne with lest worse should happen. Such 
is the unspoken feeling of many thousands of Christians. 

This is indeed a willingness to be humiliated ; but is it really 
repentance? Is it offering to God a truly afflicted spirit, a 
veritably sorrowful heart? (Ps. 1. 19.) Is it likely to be fol- 
lowed by conduct showing " fruit worthy of penance?" (Matt, 
iii. 8.) Of course we, being devoted to a career of perfect love, 
do not belong to this mean-spirited class of Catholics. We do 
not think that confession consists in saying some words solemnly 
and with a pious feeling, having no more than a vague sen- 
timent of regret, a process which is the sum total of the 

*" The best counsel that can be given to those who are touched with the 
spirit of penance, and are hindered from corporal austerities by feeble health 
or the duties of their state of life, is to apply themselves faithfully to the 
exercises of prayer, in which they will find abundant opportunity for prac- 
ticing penance" (Father Thomas of Jesus, Sufferings of Christ, xii., Suffering). 



62 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



repentance of so many outside in the world who are never 
better than half worldlings and half Catholics. We can say 
without presumption — can we not? — that we do not fall under 
the dreadful warning of our Savior : " Many shall say to Me in 
that day : Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in Thy name, and 
cast out devils in Thy name, and done many miracles in Thy 
name ? And then will I profess unto them : I never knew you ; 
depart from Me, you that work iniquity " (Matt. vii. 21-23). 

Yet there is some danger of it, at least remote, even among 
persons of our high vocation. Every one of us needs to take God 
into account most directly, most vividly, when he uses the sacra- 
ments, and especially to cherish better feelings of self-contempt, 
a sharp sense of ingratitude to our patient Redeemer, and of 
chagrin for having so basely misused His favors. These interior 
conditions, which, we are sure, always linger in the more retired 
regions of the soul after confession, are all too apt to be ignored. 
Penance tells us how to bring them into the foreground. 
Penance is a painful ardor of spirit to suffer inwardly and 
outwardly on account of our sins. It causes the bitter waters 
of contrition to flow full and deep through the caverns of our 
lower nature, cleansing them of the very dregs of iniquity still 
hidden there, whether in the form of evil tendencies, or 
of the penalty due to heaven after the guilt of our sins has 
been remitted. We learn this from the penitential spirit of the 
saints. 

St. Peter of Alcantara began a reform of the Franciscans 
exceeding in severity the rule of that order, which is itself very 
austere. When asked why he went beyond the rule of the holy 
founder himself, he answered that he took the saint's life as 
well as his words for his rule. While others were content 
to live as Francis legislated, Peter willed to live and legislate 
as Francis lived. This strange fervor could only be shared by 
a small number of heroic souls — so one would think. Yet many 
thousands of men joined that reform, and strictly adhered to its 
austerities to the end of their lives. 



COST AND COMPENSATION 



63 



We must distinguish clearly between the law and the law- 
maker. Mortal sin must be felt to be a personal offense against 
God. We do not practice ingratitude against a law, we cannot 
insult a statute book. Ingratitude is against a benefactor. And, 
in case of mortal sin, it is against our Creator, our Redeemer. 
Insulting God, betraying Jesus Christ, defying the Infinite Majesty 
enthroned among the angels, such is the meaning of sin to us 
when we are rightly guided in our repentance. How different 
is this frame of mind from the superficial sentiments of many 
Christians, who would prefer to deal with outward observances 
rather than to cultivate that feeling expressed by our 
Redeemer in our stead : " My soul is sorrowful even 
unto death" (Matt. xxvi. 38). During our Retreat, there- 
fore, and especially during these its earlier days, we should make 
many a penitential excursion into our past lives, not to gather 
up sins to tell over again in confession, but to accumulate motives * 
of sadness for our wickedness, to darken the false light of self- 
conceit with the shadows of Calvary as memory brings forward 
the scenes and circumstances and persons of former sinful days. 
That is penance, the very essence of it, the only sure preparation 
for the joyful days with which these holy exercises shall be closed. 
We must wander through the highways and byways of memory, 
saying constantly such words as these: By mortal sin I deliber- 
ately cast from me the grace of God; I willingly renounced the 
friendship of Jesus Christ; I enlisted joyfully in the fearful ranks 
of Satan's army and yielded up my soul to his sway; I deliber- 
ately chose to risk the eternal flames of hell, and I willingly 
turned my back on heaven. Nor is this altogether a pilgrimage 
of sadness. For as an honest man is glad to pay a just debt, 
though it deprives him of his money, so a penitent Christian is 
not without intervals of peaceful bliss. According to the Psalm- 
ist's teachings: "Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity; 
therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of glad- 
ness above thy fellows" (Ps. xliv. 8). 

St. Francis de Sales tells us that there are persons, who, 



6 4 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



" though they renounce and avoid sin, nevertheless often look 
back upon it, as Lot's wife did towards Sodom. They abstain 
from sin," he continues, " as sick men do from melons, which 
they forbear to taste because the physician threatens them with 
death if they eat them." The saint concludes by saying : " Souls 
that are recovered from the state of sin, and still retain these 
affections, are, in my opinion, like minds in the green sickness : 
though not sick, yet all their actions are sick; they eat without 
relish, sleep without rest, laugh without joy, and rather drag 
themselves along than walk. This is exactly the case with those 
here described : they do good, but with such a spiritual heaviness 
that it takes away all the grace from their spiritual exercises " 
(Introduction to Devout Life, Part I., ch. vii.). 

Such is the effect of the lack of a great and vehement sorrow 
for past sins. The fatal languor of tepidity is due to this 
oftener than to any other cause. When mortal sin is viewed 
with aversion instead of hatred, virtue is viewed with sentimen- 
talism rather than with love. " I ran in the way of Thy command- 
ments," says the Psalmist, " when Thou didst enlarge my heart " 
(Ps. cxviii. 32) — that is to say with a powerful and a violent 
hatred of my sins. The memory of them drives me to my knees 
before the tabernacle ; it starts me on the Way of the Cross with 
a new meaning in every station. Amazement fills my soul as the 
past flashes its disgusting pictures into my holiest devotions, 
in which I behold myself parading under the black flag of the 
generalissimo of sinners. Little by little this bitter medicine 
totally cures within me the least tendency to palliate former wick- 
edness, and the sovereign majesty of God is vindicated in all my 
faculties. The purification of the understanding is complete, 
and I am in a condition apt for the inspirations of grace. What 
does a doctor study? Not health but disease. What should a 
penitent study but his soul's wounds? till by long-continued 
treatment their very scars are as wholesome as the untainted skin 
of innocence. What did our Savior think of? Was it not 
our sins ? Does not the prophet say of Him that He lived amidst 



COST AND COMPENSATION 



65 



men as one "alive amidst the dead?" (Ps. lxxxvii. 6) — always 
engaged with our redemption from sin and hell as His one all- 
embracing occupation. Of course, our reversion to the guilty 
past may go to extremes and lead to scruples. But with us whose 
training is mature, and for whom good counsel is always at hand, 
this danger is remote. On the other hand, there is danger of 
a soul remaining a pigmy in God's sight, solely because it does 
not know nor want to know and hate its former iniquity. 

True repentance — how often must we be reminded of it? — 
is essentially an interior condition, dealing with affections and 
aversions, or rather loves and hates. This state of mind is 
the root of repentance. Contrition is a tree whose root alone is 
good to eat, and the leaves, blossoms, and fruits are given us to 
show where the root is and what degree of life it has. Dis- 
ciplines and fastings and all bodily austerities, God knows that 
they are very good ; but their worth depends on our inner humil- 
iation and self-abasement. Emotional conditions may not 
always be present, for all natures are not equally moved 
to tears. A woman once came to a priest and told 
him that she had sometime before murdered her two 
little children. As she seemed quite unmoved during the recital 
of her dreadful tale, he said to her : " Why, woman, you seem 
entirely unaffected by the confession of such a crime ; I don't see 
how you can sleep with the memory of it." But she answered : 
" Father, I don't sleep ; I cannot show my feelings, and tears do 
not come to me, but the thought of my sin drives sleep away." 
Sincerity is not always tearful; its ardor often seems to dry up 
the fountains of weeping. Yet tears are a gift from God, and 
when granted to our penitence they are a sweet solace. Saints 
weep readily over their own past offences, and just as easily over 
the sins of others. May God grant us holy tears, and even such 
a surfeit of weeping that we shall complain to Him with the 
prophet : " How long wilt thou feed us with the bread of tears, 
and give us for our drink tears in measure?" (Ps. lxxix. 6.) 

May God grant us an adequate knowldge of sin as it rules 



66 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



men and nations, and as once it ruled ourselves. Such a knowl- 
edge of it as will make us fit to bear company with our Redeemer 
in the Garden of Olives, where He drank our sins into His very 
blood, and exclaimed: "My Father! If it be possible, let this 
chalice pass from Me" (Matt. xxvi. 39). O Christ in agony! 
give us a share of Thy horror for sin, and Thy broken-hearted 
sympathy for sinners. Tell us by the terrible reproaches of 
our conscience what it has meant for us to offend and to insult 
Thy Father and wreck our souls eternally, so that we may say as 
did Thy servant Job : " Fear hath seized upon me and trembling, 
and all my bones were affrighted" (Job iv. 14). This fear and 
hatred is, indeed, something more than natural, being such as con- 
sumes the days and nights of the lost ; it is almost a foretaste of 
eternal doom, granted us as a preventive against future sin, but 
also instilled into our spirits to move us to timely works of pen- 
ance. No dogma of religion is surer than this : if one would be 
close to God he must suffer. Yet how seldom is this actually 
realized as a solemn truth of faith, even by persons vowed to per- 
fection ; rather it is relegated to the take-or-leave region of relig- 
ion. When shall we both know and feel that this word has God's 
authority : " Gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable 
men in the furnace of humiliations" (Ecclus. ii. 5). St. Philip 
Neri was persecuted long and bitterly by two renegade monks, who 
had managed to be placed in charge of the sacristy of the church 
in which the saint said Mass. At last he was tormented by them 
to that degree that he seemed driven to extremities, and he cried 
to God — for what? To be delivered from his enemies? Not so. 
" O my good Jesus," he exclaimed, " why dost Thou not hear me? 
So long and with such persistence I have asked patience of 
Thee, why hast Thou not heard me?" Thus do saints pray 
in a penitential spirit, not for deliverance from affliction, but for 
patience to bear it. 

The love of God shown by suffering: this seems to be the 
sum of all methods of perfection, whether forming a general 
scheme, or the plan of a single day. What have you to do 



COST AND COMPENSATION 



67 



to-day? A variety of things, some by law, some by charity, 
some for recruiting the forces of body and brain; and one 
day differs from another in the weight and worth of the deeds 
to be done. But remember that all days are alike in one thing: 
you must this day love God and you must suffer for His sake. 
A day without any suffering at all is not found in Christ's calen- 
dar. Perfection is the slow-moving miracle of man's assimilation 
to Christ by his sympathy for and his imitation of what happened 
Him upon Calvary. Our power of so thinking and so acting is 
the great standard miracle of our religion. Between the ordinary 
gift of miracles and the gift of willing suffering for Christ's sake, 
St. Chrysostom notes this difference : " In performing miracles 
I become debtor to God ; in suffering for Him, I make God my 
debtor." All who believe in Christ must believe in the divine 
worth of suffering. An act of faith in the holiness of peni- 
tential pain is elicited from every true-hearted Christian when 
afflictions fall upon him, a faith close joined to a Christ-like act 
of love of God. Every suffering has this message to a faithful 
soul : Thou art a sinner, and I am come to help thee acknowledge 
it, and atone for thy sinfulness. Among Eastern Christians it is 
customary when entering a church to halt for a moment at the 
door, and bending towards the altar to repeat the words of the 
publican : " O God, be merciful to me a sinner " (Luke xviii. 13) . 
Might not each of us do the same as we pass the threshold of 
our convent, which is an institute dedicated to humility and con- 
trition for sin? 

Many years ago a little band of French missionaries went 
to New Zealand to convert the natives, at that time in a state of 
savagery. Presently word was brought them that the wild 
tribes were preparing to put them to death. At the same moment 
a British warship came to the islands, and sent a boat ashore to 
take off the missionaries and carry them to a place of safety. 
They refused to go. " But you will be put to death," 
said the British officer. " We do not fear death," said the su- 
perior of the missionaries. " Then in God's name what do you 



63 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



fear?" exclaimed the officer. "We fear mortal sin," was the 
answer, " that, and nothing else." The one thing worse than 
death is sin. The supreme fear of a devout soul is lest it shall 
offend God mortally, and its supreme pain is its regret for 
having done so. It is hardly too much to say that the wisdom 
peculiar to our religion is knowledge of sin and its penalties and 
its pardon. One does not know life till he understands sin, 
repentance, and atonement. When shall we understand, with 
Christ Crucified, that the great fact of human existence is sin, and 
the great blessing of life is contrition — sincere, supernatural, 
supreme, and penitential contrition. 

The ancient Councils of the Church imposed on sinners 
what were known as canonical penances, performing publicly 
what every true Christian feels to be his private personal duty, 
namely, the suffering of pain for sins forgiven in union 
with the Redeemer's infinite atonement of the cross. The primi- 
tive Christians, although their lives were filled with holy joys, 
yet loved to partake of " the fellowship of His sufferings, being 
made conformable to His death" (Phil. hi. 10). The pagans 
were amazed at their austerities, and deeply offended. Such 
mastery of the carnal appetites was a reproach to their unbridled 
license ; and on that account they proclaimed our ancestors in the 
faith to be enemies of the human race. The entire body of 
Catholic teaching concerning human joys and sorrows conveys 
an impression of a rigorous purpose on the part of Christians to 
train with Christ Crucified. The cross was from the beginning 
chosen as the symbol and standard of the true faith. No 
doctrine is more typically Catholic than that formulated by the 
Council of Trent, distinctly setting forth suffering as a Christian's 
dearest prerogative : " It is a blessed gift of the divine bounty, 
that not only can we render satisfaction to God for our sins by 
penitential works of our own choosing, or by those imposed 
on us by the priest in the sacrament of penance, but also that the 
painful visitations of providence, if we but patiently bear them, 
may by our union with Christ Jesus avail with God the Father 



COST AND COMPENSATION 



69 



to the same end" (Con. Trid. sess. xiv., cap. ix.). The carry- 
ing out of this principle, which elevates our puny sufferings to 
the dignity of those of the Son of God, is absolutely necessary for 
Christian perfection. Those who aspire to love God with their 
whole hearts, must aspire to the crucifixion of " their flesh with 
the vices and concupiscences;" and the Apostle adds that this 
is really living and walking in the Spirit of God (Gal. v. 24, 25). 
The wickedness of sin must be known if our sorrow for it shall 
be adequate, and this knowledge is gained only by painful 
visitations of the Holy Ghost, Whose office is to " convince the 
world of sin, and of justice, and of judgment" (John xvi. 8) — 
visitations vouchsafed only to those who resolutely undertake the 
way of the cross. It may not be done with haste, it must be 
done under prudent guides; but it must be done. It is only a 
grieved, chagrined, and wholly disenchanted penitent, who shall 
offer himself to Christ as His fellow-sufferer in the Garden. 
And it must be one who regards his own flesh as his foremost 
enemy, that shall aspire to stand at Christ's side on Calvary. 

A ready facility of penitential virtue is not easy to 
be had, nor when once possessed may it be counted on to 
continue without vigilance and steady effort. It is purely a boon 
from heaven, although one never refused to an earnest spirit. 
Entering the arena of perfection may be compared to the raising 
of Lazarus from the dead. Our Lord called to the four days 
old corpse " with a loud voice : Lazarus, come forth. And pres- 
ently he that had been dead came forth, bound feet and hands 
with winding bands; and his face was bound with a napkin. 
Jesus said to them : Loose him, and let him go " (John xi. 43, 44) . 
After Jesus calls me from death to life by my original vocation, 
I am unable to do more than struggle with the bands and fetters 
of my old habits and my native tendencies to sin. But if I will 
only steadfastly continue, then one by one these are loosened and 
flung away by my good angels at my Savior's command. Loose 
him, and let him go; inspire him with a love of fasting and of 
disciplines ; show him the good of self-abnegation, of quick and 



7o 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



cheerful obedience. And at last the love of Christ Crucified is 
permanently established in my soul. In His own good time 
—St. Francis de Sales says that if one is faithful it will surely 
come, though we may wait for it till a quarter of an hour before 
death — in His own good time the Holy Spirit will complete our 
liberation from the bands of death, and will advance us unto the 
life of " a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness 
of Christ" (Eph. iv. 13). Constancy of heart is never unre- 
warded ; and the hardest brunt of the battle is borne at the first 
onsets, when we struggle to be freed from the world and our 
relatives and our youthful ambitions. Then, go on intelligently ; 
we have the plainest guide in our interior purpose, and 
our fixed rule of life to suffer for Christ and with Christ. 
"It is no easy matter to be the friend of Jesus," writes Blessed 
John of Avila ; " suffering borne for Him is the only good test 
which is the true and which is the false friend." 

Let no one imagine that a penitential life is a gloomy one. 
" Compunction of heart," says St. John Climacus, " contains 
in it spiritual joy as wax contains honey. God in an invisible 
manner visits and comforts the heart that is broken with holy 
sorrow." One might even go farther, and say that this is the 
only way that God ever visits us with joy, at least with 
joy of the deeper kind. The sweetest honey of consolation is 
always stored in the bitterest honeycomb of penance. And 
no man cometh to the Father's joy but by Christ Crucified (John 
xiv. 6), by crucifixion alone do we claim a share in the bliss 
of His Resurrection, Who, " having joy set before Him, endured 
the cross, despising the shame, and Who now sitteth on the right 
hand of the throne of God" (Heb. xii. 2). His final purpose 
for us, as it was for Himself, is joy perfect and eternal. If 
there were any better way of gaining it than by penitential 
suffering, He would have chosen it. " O my soul," says St. 
Teresa, " do not seek to rejoice until thou hast first suffered " 
(Exclamation vi.). 

The Apostles " went from the presence of the council re- 



COST AND COMPENSATION 



7i 



joicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer reproach for 
the name of Jesus" (Acts v. 41). They rejoiced to be ill-used 
for Christ's sake. They felt better, slept better, were more cheer- 
ful and generally happy — nay, they were enthused with divine 
happiness because they had been hustled into jail by brutal sol- 
diers, loaded with chains, arraigned publicly as criminals, and 
only dismissed after dire threats of death. Reach that state, 
O my soul. Be content when thou art ill-treated, crowded out 
of thy rights, bossed and bullied by superiors and inferiors, 
cruelly injured by malevolent tongues: pray to God that thou 
mayest reach the state of being glad that thou art in all this 
counted worthy to suffer for Christ's sake and as a penance for 
thy sins. Art thou as yet far off from such virtue? After 
such like sufferings, dost thou not grow miserable, sleep uneasily, 
lose thy appetite, and feel and even look hurt, perhaps defiant? 
If so, then be sure that thou art as far off from real joy as from 
real perfection. 



i 



VIII. 



THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING. 

St. Jane Frances de Chantal tells of St. Francis de Sales 
sorrowing over the corpse of his mother : " He wept over his 
good mother more tears, as he told me, than he had shed since 
he had been a priest, but not tears of bitterness, 'for/ he added, 
'it was a calm sorrow though a sharp one. I said to God like 
David : " I was dumb, and I opened not my mouth, because Thou 
hast done it " (Ps. xxxviii. 10) . If it had not been for that, doubt- 
less I should have broken out into passionate lamentations ; but I 
dared not cry out under the blows of that Fatherly hand' " (From 
St. Chantal's testimony for St. Francis de Sales' canonization). 
A mark of sainthood is keen-sightedness in finding the hand of 
God in the vicissitudes of life. The place of suffering in religion, 
in repentance, in perfection, is not commonly enough known. 
The least known of all wisdom is the philosophy of suffering, 
a wisdom purely religious. Nothing is so hard to learn as the 
lesson of Calvary. " And calling the multitude together with 
His disciples, He said to them: If any man will follow Me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me " 
(Mark viii. 34). 

This stern test of fellowship with Christ is expressed by 
Father Thomas of Jesus, as follows : " Thus Christ has de- 
clared in His Gospel that He will acknowledge none for His 
disciples but crucified men" (Sufferings of Jesus, xlii., 2). 

St. Luke tells us, that when our Lord prophesied to His 
followers the fate that was before Him, " they understood 
none of these things, and this word was hid from them, and 
they understood not the things that were said" (Luke xviii. 
31-34). This is a triple statement of a thrice-dved ignorance 

(72) 



THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING 



73 



of the divine reason of suffering. Involuntary suffering they 
might have understood; but that He should be "offered be- 
cause He willed it" (Isaias liii. 7) — a rebellious no was cast 
back at Him with triple emphasis. 

The value of knowing the reason of suffering is that it 
mitigates the pain; it justified St. Francis de Sales in his calm- 
ness of sorrow; it is an incentive to assume pain for the divine 
reason of Calvary, and to praise it and to propagate it. Ignor- 
ance of the source of evil is almost an excuse for falling into 
it; if any excuse avails for flight in battle it is: We were am- 
bushed. 

The most complete misery is that which I cannot explain; 
it is like the fright from ghostly apparitions. A fit of cause- 
less depression of spirits is often worse agony than anguish at 
a friend's deathbed. Reason demands a cause everywhere 
and of everything; the mind cannot work without material to 
work on; otherwise it acts like an engine spinning its wheels 
on slippery rails. The miseries of this life are insupportable 
only to one who will not perceive their origin and cause — the 
hand of God balancing sin with justice. This is not stoicism. 
" It is not," says Tauler, " that a man is inaccessible to all 
external emotion. No; certainly not. To be truly patient is 
to hold for certain that no man can do us wrong " — so brightly 
conscious are we of our deservings. 

If the Apostles, on the occasion referred to, had risen 
to the resignation of faith, and believed, on their Master's 
word, that He must enter His glory only by suffering these 
awful things (Luke xxiv. 26), they would have obeyed Him 
intelligently, exactly; they would not have fled away ignomin- 
iously; Peter would not have denied Him; John would not 
have been their solitary representative on Calvary; their eyes 
would not have been bandaged by triple folds of misgivings, 
even after the Resurrection; Thomas would not have earned 
the ignoble distinction of being the doubting Apostle. 

How different the case of Mary, who for her acceptance 



74 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



of the mystery of suffering is crowned with the high title of 
Mother of Sorrows. She said nothing, but she believed all; 
listened and looked and believed; and then she suffered, inde- 
scribably, efficaciously, " That out of many hearts, thoughts might 
be revealed " (Luke ii. 35). 

That much we can do, each in his place and measure, if 
we shall but learn the mystery of suffering, which is naught 
else than the bridge between sin and atonement. Then our 
abandonment to divine providence (in all the meanings of sub- 
mission to God's good pleasure) would be a flow of sweet 
water from the deeper springs of consolation. And our love 
of Jesus Crucified would be perfect, for it would be sympa- 
thetic. The cause of sorrow is God's purpose to remit sin by 
an adequate atonement in which each of us shall have a share: 
" Wherefore Jesus, also, that He might sanctify the people by 
His own Blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth, 
therefore, to Him without the camp, bearing His reproach " 
(Heb. xiii. 12, 13). The reason of the alliance of sanctification 
with suffering is sin, and the decree that " without the shed- 
ding of blood there shall be no remission" (Heb. ix. 22). The 
religious definition of suffering is this: It is the means of the 
sanctification of our souls by the painful mingling of Christ's 
Blood with our own. Herein is the secret of the mystery of 
suffering, both now and in purgatory, nay it is the secret of 
heaven's joy. St. Catherine of Genoa suffered acute physical 
pain in the latter part of her life. And it was said that her 
friends " beheld heaven in her soul, and purgatory in her agon- 
ized body" {Life, ch. xxxviii.). 

We have an inkling of our relation to pain when we real- 
ize that sin is a hurt to nature; the terms abnormal, deordi- 
nate, disintegrating, are all descriptive no less of sin than of 
sadness. Know sin and you know suffering in its roots. What- 
soever is not known in its cause is not well known in its ef- 
fects, is hardly known at all. Sin partly known is a violation 
of law and order; fully known it is a personal insult to the 



THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING 75 



Deity, a breach of friendship with the Eternal Father, meaning 
deordination, indeed, but principally bitter woe to the sinner. 

The effect on an heroic soul of knowing this clearly is 
shown in the case of St. Catherine of Genoa. In her Spiritual 
Dialogue, she thus makes the soul address the body and self- 
love : " My brothers, I have come to know that God is about to 
do a work of love in my behalf, and therefore I shall take no more 
heed of you, your needs or your words. Under the appear- 
ance of good and necessity, you have well nigh led me to the 
death of sin. Now I intend to do to you what you have 
wished to do to me, and I shall hold you in no more respect 
than if you were my deadly enemies. Never expect to be on 
good terms with me again — give up all hopes of it. Yet I 
shall do all things in such manner that the necessities of each 
shall be satisfied. You led me to do what I ought not, in order 
to satisfy your appetites; and I will now lead you to do what 
you wish not, in order to satisfy the spirit. I will not spare 
you, even if you are worn out, even as you spared me not in 
so enslaving me that you did with me wholly as you pleased. 
I hope to bring you into such subjection to myself as to change 
your natures" (ch. ix.). 

St. Thomas teaches that suffering is the absence of a nec- 
essary good or the impending loss of it; or it is the intrusion 
of evil or the impending coming of it. Now there is no 
human being at any time of his life in whom the co-exist- 
ence of this cause and effect is not either established, or re- 
cently established, or impending. For in Adam, our nature's 
fountain head, " all have sinned and do need the glory of 
God" (Rom. iii. 23); all the innocent are liable to sin and 
dread it, all the penitent lament it : " And if we say we 
have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us " 
(1 John i. 8). The whole race constantly suffers from the ab- 
sence, real or possible, of its supreme need, the love of God: 
" For we know that every creature groaneth, and travaileth in 
pain, until now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who 



7 6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan 
within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, 
the redemption of our body" (Rom. viii. 22). Mark the Apos- 
tle's last words, laying down sinfulness as the root of the 
body's pain. It is notorious that most men spend their whole 
life in seeking pleasure and shunning pain, never with full 
success, often with aggravation of their misery. How high a 
condition is that, in which happiness is not dependent on 
pleasure. " I used to say to Satan," relates St. Teresa, " when 
he suggested to me that I was ruining my health [by my 
austerities], that my death was of no consequence; when he 
suggested rest, I replied that I did not want rest but the 
cross" (Life, ch. xiii.). Until one feels thus about dying and 
resting he will make no great progress. 

What then is our joy? It is the joy of penance. St. 
Peter of Alcantara appeared in a vision to St. Teresa after 
his death, all resplendent with glory, and he said to her: 
"O blessed penance, which has won for me so great a joy!" 
It is our only solid joy. Our joy is a sick man's joy in his 
medicine. We once heard a soldier of the Civil War boast 
joyfully of his left arm, which had been dreadfully fractured 
by a gunshot wound, and had been saved by a skillful surgeon 
extracting a section of the shattered and splintered bones 
between the wrist and elbow; he was proudly exhibiting and 
thankfully boasting of a boneless and almost nerveless arm 
and hand. But it was an arm, nevertheless, a real limb of 
flesh and blood, and infinitely better than none at all. A 
wounded man's joy is in the sharpness of the surgeon's knife, 
and a Christian's joy is in the sharp knife of sorrow for sin, 
that pain of contrition which cuts deep and true to his heart's 
core. " To my hearing," cries the royal penitent, " Thou shalt 
give joy and gladness, and the bones that have been humbled 
shall rejoice" (Ps. 1. 10). Believe in that joy; crave that joy of 
God; accustom yourself to the joy of mending your thoughts 
by painful efforts; of thinking of sin and of suffering and 



THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING 77 



atonement as unified under the cross; of sympathizing with 
the Redeemer; of bearing the pain of submission to the divine 
will as the counter-pain of mental or bodily suffering. Do all 
this and go on doing it by reasoning and by method and by 
habit, till at last you can do it by instinct. One must syste- 
matically use spiritual means and measures until he becomes 
simply saturated with this doctrine of the correlation of sin, 
pain or joy, if he would go on smoothly towards perfection, 
which is " justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost " 
(Rom. xiv. 17). 

Fail not to use the same plan for bodily joy, which if ra- 
tional and Christian, must square with that of St. Paul : " I 
now rejoice in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may 
dwell within me" (2 Cor. xii. 9). We find joy in the soul's 
sores by curing them with the salve of the commandments, 
adding the unction of the counsels of perfection for the 
period of convalescence and to secure entire recovery. Con- 
sider this: if one persists in sin, he suffers as a mere penalty; 
if he repents, he yet suffers, but joyfully as an atonement. 

Joseph was the name of a Christian priest who suffered 
martyrdom under Sapor, King of Persia, in the fourth century. 
Being fearfully scourged, and seeing himself covered with his 
own blood, he lifted his eyes to heaven and joyfully exclaimed: 
" I return Thee the greatest thanks in my power, O Christ 
my Lord, for granting me this favor, washing me in my own 
blood by a second baptism and cleansing me again from my 
sins " (See Butler's Lives, March 14). It was a favorite saying 
of Father Hecker, that the spirit of the martyrs was needed 
in our day and country for the spread of the true faith, for 
that alone, he insisted, forms the missionary type of character. 

Love is the source of all joy. Suffering in atonement for 
sin is suffering for love. Love is just, and so by suffering makes 
up to the Beloved His losses by sin. And this form of love 
takes rank before other forms. Be just before generous; pay 
your debts before you give to the poor; be penitent before 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



you are heroic. The head of our race is Christ, and His 
office is as personal to each as it is universal for all : " I 
would have you to know that the head of every man is 
Christ" (i Cor. xi. 3). Now the trysting place of each and 
all of His members is Calvary : " And I, if I be lifted up, will 
draw all things to Myself" (John xii. 32). Suffering has 
lifted Him up and enthroned Him; we must know suffering 
in order to range ourselves beside Him. What love equals 
that of Christ on the cross! What love is so sorrowful, what 
sorrow is so lovely! What joy is so quickly got and so surely 
held as that of the loving sorrow of the cross ? " For the 
love of Christ presseth us: judging this, that if one died for 
all, then all were dead. And Christ died for all; that they 
also that live may not now live to themselves, but to Him 
that died for them and rose again" (2 Cor. v. 14, 15). Is 
not this a joyful solution of the problem of suffering? 

What man does to God when he commits sin is one thing; 
what he causes God to do is another: the Crucifixion of His 
Only-begotten Son. By sin God is by His very nature com- 
pelled to remove love from the throne of joy and place it on 
the throne of pain, for justice demands this. By sin man does 
this to God: he seeks joy without love, therefore a sensual 
joy, an avaricious joy, the joy of hate, of sloth, the joy of 
pride, disobedience and rebellion, the joy of the beast or the 
demon w T hich feeds the love of the degenerate child of God. 
But this joy of the wicked shall perish, and it will be fol- 
lowed by the reaction of sadness, just as is the case with the 
joy of the drunkard. Conscience rises like the stern prophet 
before the sinful king of Israel, and stands and points and 
threatens, and pronounces awful words of doom. Then follows 
doubt, dread, shame, rage, foreboding: pain in its worst 
form. This form of suffering is without God in the world 
and without hope. The other form is the suffering of the 
penitent : " And David said to Nathan : I have sinned against 
the Lord" (2 Kings xii. 13), and forthwith "his tears be- 



THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING 



79 



came his bread day and night" (Ps. xli. 4), till the prophet's 
message of pardon : " Thy sin is forgiven thee " had pene- 
trated to his deepest soul with its message of joy. 

Our consolation is, therefore, a product of courageous suf- 
fering. Perfect joy we cannot have here below, and yet a , 
good meed of repose of mind is sure to come by the post- 
ponement of unmixed joy till we enjoy it with Christ in the 
next life. " If He," says St. Augustine, " Who came into this 
world without sin, did not depart hence without scourges, how 
shall they who have lived here in sin not be deserving of 
scourges ? " 

A very sweet joy is that which submerges all carnal, all 
rebellious joys, and is content to rejoice in the more spiritual 
faculties, with a pleasure perceptible only in the finer sensi- 
bilities. Of a devout penitent of his St. Vincent de Paul 
said : " It is nothing to see her in health ; you ought to see her 
in sickness if you would learn her soul's quality." 

This love of suffering is unknown to the worlding, for 
whom suicide is so often the besetting temptation under in- 
curable disease. And yet men often sneer at the Christian's 
exercises of self -subjugation as self-torture, as inhuman, mor- 
bid, gloomy. But what of the self-torture of the man who 
practices vice, or of one less guilty, but not less foolish, who 
wears away his life in the pursuit of money or of power? 
Not self-torture alone but self-destruction it should be called, 
the destruction of the good self by the bad self. The self- 
chosen suffering of the Christian is just the reverse; it is the 
painful inner process of the enslavement by the good self of 
the bad self, done in union with Christ Crucified. This is the 
surest joy of a rational existence, the only outlet for the 
noble longing of the spirit towards perfect bliss. St. Teresa 
says that the only remedy for the tedium of a long life, is to 
suffer for Christ's sake : " What medicine hast Thou, O God, 
for such misery? There is none, save to suffer for Thy sake * 
(Exclamation xiv.). 



8o 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



" The thought possessed me that in order to obtain heaven 
it was necessary to give up the earth " — the testimony of St. 
Bernard, and a very simple truth. It is the main truth, after 
all, of our divine doctrine, as far as that doctrine tells of 
means to an end. But not for obtaining heaven alone is 
abandonment to holy pain efficacious, for it bestows on its 
adepts the mastery of the earth. During the many years 
that that same St. Bernard's life, attenuated by years of relig- 
gious asceticism, hung by a thread, he chained to God's will 
whole nations of men. 

He was a marvelous combination of both the contempla- 
tive and the active spirit, showing how both work together 
unto joy. For the contemplative saint provides himself with 
food and sleep and clothes and shelter only sufficient to ward 
off death; because the nearer he is to expiring the closer is 
his view of God, his only joy. The saint of the active life 
makes barely sufficient provision of necessary bodily helps to 
ward off the collapse of his physical powers — the nearer he 
is to fainting the better does he enjoy the consolation of his 
labors for souls. One can see how easily the two types may 
blend into one. The ordinary good Christian barely keeps within 
the Church's penal laws of fasting and abstinence ; and even he 
has no small sweetness of devotion; for the motives of all true 
Christians are identically those of Calvary. 

" A soul that is full," says the Wise Man, " shall tread on 
the honeycomb; but a soul that is hungry shall take even 
bitter for sweet" (Prov. xxvii. 7). How accurate a statement 
of the two conditions. When sated with an over-plenty of 
every good thing this world can offer, the soul disregards 
the heavenly banquet of the Holy Spirit. When dry and hungry, 
the least thought of God tastes sweet. Even the anger of God 
is a boon to a soul that is angry with itself, for it is the anger 
of a father; it bestows first filial fear and then joyful love. 

What, then, shall I do about joy and suffering? The 
answer depends on your attitude of mind about sin and its 



THE MYSTERY OF SUFFERING 



81 



divine Victim. What think you of Calvary, whose joy is there? 
What think you of Christ Crucified, what joy is His? In seek- 
ing for joy place yourself face to face with the God-man injured 
by your sins, and realize that the penalty is measured by the lex 
talionis, a life for a life. But in paying this penalty, bear in 
mind that you instantly recover your own life enriched and 
ennobled by Christ's. 

Let us conclude these thoughts on the mystery of sorrow 
and joy by Newman's profession of faith in the Catholic prin- 
ciple of asceticism : " O my Lord Jesus, I believe, and by Thy 
grace will ever believe and hold, and I know that it is true, and 
will be true to the end of the world, that nothing great is done 
without suffering, without humiliation, and all things are possible 
by means of it. I believe, O my God, that poverty is better than 
riches, pain better than pleasure, obscurity and contempt than 
name, and ignominy and reproach than honor. My Lord, I do 
not ask Thee to bring these trials on me, for I know not if I 
could face them ; but at least, O Lord, whether I be in prosperity 
or adversity, I will believe that it is as I have said. I will never 
have faith in riches, rank, power, or reputation. I will never 
set my heart on worldly success or on worldly advantages. I will 
never wish for what men call the prizes of life. I will ever, 
with Thy grace, make much of those who are despised or neg- 
lected, honor the poor, revere the suffering, and admire and 
venerate Thy saints and confessors, and take my part with them 
in spite of the world" (Meditations). 



IX. 



DEATH. 

" Suffer both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest 
I will say to the reapers : Gather up first the cockle into bundles to burn, 
but the wheat gather ye into my barn" (Matt. xiii. 30). 

We are to meditate on death. Let us begin by thanking 
God that He has placed us in the way to eternal life, with- 
drawing us from the peril of an unhappy death, or at least the 
imminent peril. For if we but love God fervently, holding fast 
to our rule of life (Apoc. iii. 11), nothing can snatch from us 
our immortal crown. Why then should we fear? "What love 
of Christ can that be," exclaims St. Augustine, " to fear lest 
He come Whom you say you love? O are we not ashamed to 
say we love whilst we add that we are afraid of His coming?" 

But turn and look ! See the vast numbers of our f ellowmen 
who are wicked and unrepentant, nay, who grow worse and worse 
every day. Wickedness sinks deeper and deeper into their lives 
through continuance in vice. Practice makes perfect. Bad prac- 
tices make men perfect in sin, until at the " time of the harvest " 
they are hopelessly depraved. We priests meet sinners so hard- 
ened that on their deathbeds they answer an invitation to confess 
with insults and blasphemies. 

The Wise Man says : " They that glory in evil things grow 
old in evil" (Ecclus. xi. 16). We meet with those who are so 
wicked that they boast of their vices. One sin, committed at 
first only occasionally, naturally leads to another — then custom is 
established. Custom in turn begets necessity, until finally the 
judgment becomes so warped that the sinner is often unable even 
to admire virtue in others. There are men in plenty who become 
, c et and hardened in sin for ever. The history of many a life 

.(82) 



DEATH 



S3 



may be thus described, and its end forecast: sin, habit, necessity, 
blindness of mind and inveterate hardness of heart. The end 
is the harvest of death : " Gather the cockle into bundles to burn." 

But thanks be to God, a good life, such as we are, as it 
were, compelled to lead, grows better and better every day. One 
feels at first the practice of religion to be tedious and cramped. 
But presently the soul grows freer; virtue tastes sweeter and 
sweeter as time goes on. A peaceful conscience reveals its treas- 
ures of tranquil joy. Vice is seen in its hideous reality. The 
manliness, dignity, and reasonableness of being good becomes fully 
known. And above all God places in the soul, constantly fed by 
the graces of the sacraments and prayer, an intense love for 
Jesus Christ. After a few years, temptations that were once 
overpowering, are trampled under foot without hesitation. Vir- 
tue strikes deep roots in the soul. There is a steady growth of 
faith in God, confidence in Jesus Crucified, and a plain percep- 
tion of the interior guidance of the Holy Spirit. Virtue is be- 
come not easy, but necessary, fruitful of an indispensable joy. 
And when the harvest time comes, when spiritual maturity has 
been reached, the soul's Lord and Master says to the angel of 
death : " Gather the wheat into My barn." 

St. Francis de Sales says : " It is a great reproach to 
beings doomed to die, that death should come without their 
having thought of it beforehand." It is doubly a reproach to 
those who reject the thought when it is offered to them. Here 
is a journey which must be made, and our Savior tells us we 
may be called on to set forth suddenly : " At even, at midnight, 
at cock crowing or in the morn" (Mark xiii. 35), and we act 
as if we were to stay here forever. Not so those who are 
sincerely devoted to God's service, for every day they have 
some calm but fervent thoughts about death. " Pray for me," 
wrote such a one to a friend, " that love may be the death of 
my body and the life of my soul." 

Who counts the days between life and death ? The convicted 
inmate of the prison cell. Perhaps, also, the man to whom the 



84 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



physicians have announced that his disease is fatal. Yet neither 
of these reckons the remaining time of life more carefully than 
a Christian who aspires to perfect conformity with Christ. In 
preparation for Communion, he hears his Master's words, " My 
time is near at hand, with thee I make the pasch with My dis- 
ciples " (Matt. xxvi. 18). To a wise disciple of Christ every 
Communion is a viaticum, just as the Last Supper was to his 
divine Master. " Oh, the gladness of life and the sadness of 
death," says the beginner. " Oh, the sadness of life and the 
gladness of death," says the proficient. " Oh, the gladness of 
life and the gladness of death," says the perfect Christian, wholly 
conformed to the Divine Will. " Whether we live, we live unto 
the Lord, whether we die, we die unto the Lord. Therefore 
whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord's" (Rom. 
xiv. 8). 

Our Redeemer spoke of His death as " My time " (John vii. 
6). So do I regard the last days of my career as especially 
my property. No hour of life is so certainly my own as that in 
which I surrender everything, all that I am, all that I have, to 
God. Oh, Jesus ! I claim that hour with a miser's eagerness ; in it 
shall be payed the last installment of my debt to Thee. Looking 
forward to it, now I beg Thee to accept it benignantly, to accept 
it personally, to receive it Thyself, Thou and Thy Blessed Mother. 

My end is fixed and certain, but God's Church bears me 
in her motherly arms towards the gates of death, and God and 
His Saints and His graces and His truth are always with me. 
Thank heaven that if in my last hour my sins shall rush in upon 
me, so also shall Christ's mercies, and with triumphant force 
they shall possess my soul with hope and love. 

Then will the wisdom of a fervent life be fully demonstrated. 
We do not sin mortally, at least we cannot persuade ourselves 
that we do; we are not foul with vice, nor are we a snare to 
others, nor steeped in hypocrisy. But we lack generosity with 
God, we play fast and loose with the inspirations of His grace, 
or we huckster with Him in paying our debt of penance ; we are 



DEATH 



self-indulgent; we are cold towards His servants with whom 
our lot is cast unless they happen to be our favorites; and we 
hold aloof from our superiors and censure them. How ill all 
this will look when the divine mandate comes to us : " Take order 
with thy house, for thou shalt die and not live " (Isaias xxxviii. 
i). Which of us shall feel like doing as did St. Turibius the 
Apostle of Peru? He ordered that the messenger who brought 
word that his physicians despaired of his recovery, should be 
given a present. He was not afraid to place his life under the 
divine scrutiny, therefore the news of his death was welcome 
to him. 

A charitable rich man is glad of his riches because he 
can give them away to the poor, and he sees this not purely 
as charity, but also as a duty. In the same light a devout Chris- 
tian, in hearty good health, should regard his physical force 
and powers of endurance. If he offers them as an oblation 
to God in view of his death, in union with the death of Jesus 
Christ, with an overpowering sense of reality, he has received a 
grace of no ordinary value. Alas few of us do this; while in 
robust health we look upon our death without the least emotion, 
except when death takes from us some dear friend. Then a 
sudden shortening of life's perspective causes us to feel as if 
we ourselves were at death's door. But this is too often but 
a passing sensation. 

" Have the gates of death been opened to thee," asks the 
patriarch Job, " and hast thou seen the darksome doors?" (Job 
xxxviii. 17.) Until thou hast entered into death as into a secret 
chamber of meditation, and hast sat for mournful hours ponder- 
ing its sad but most truthful lessons, thou shalt not have knowl- 
edge of God and of sin and of salvation. St. John the Almoner, 
Patriarch of Alexandria, had his grave half dug, and on the 
more solemn occasions of his ministry he required one of his 
officials to stand publicly before him and exclaim, " My lord 
patriarch, thy grave is unfinished. Be pleased to order its com- 
pletion, for thou mayst need it at any moment." 



86 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Take the whole life of a man here and hereafter, and the 
time between the birth and death of even a centenarian. It is, 
after all, but a brief interval filled too often, alas ! with sins and 
vanity and deceits. Yet the small fraction of it that is called the 
hour of death is the summary of one's whole earthly career, and 
it characterizes the eternal years of the future. In a bad man 
it is usually evil with everlasting portent. " Evil men and se- 
ducers shall grow worse and worse " (2 Tim. iii. 13). The offer 
of God's mercy to them is too often fruitless. But to this awful 
rule there are, thanks be to God, many exceptions, the first, the 
greatest, and the most consoling being the repentance of the 
good thief. May not I also hope for pardon who, with all my 
defects, am now, and for many years have been, a true friend of 
Christ, looking to Him in my need and to the glory of His 
kingdom. 

Holy Writ says of Abel : " Though dead he yet speaketh " 
(Heb. xi. 4). This is true of every corpse. Have you not 
learned lessons of resistless force from the silent orator in his 
coffin. The day comes when you yourself will enter that force- 
ful pulpit, and those who have perhaps disregarded your words 
in life will be moved by your silence in death. Shall your teaching 
be a lesson of edification? Shall they say: " His good life was 
crowned by a holy death?" Or shall it be a warning: "He 
was careless of religion, and now he is face to face with God." 
Preparing to die is preparing to preach to our survivors, and the 
one only topic of that discourse shall be the vanity of transitory 
things. 

The Emperor Charles V., who ruled over half of Europe in 
the early part of the sixteenth century, after many years of war 
and glory, saw by the grace of God the emptiness of all earthly 
ambition, and stepped down from his throne and entered a mon- 
astery to prepare to die. On one occasion he had the monks 
celebrate his funeral rites. His coffin was set up before the 
Altar, and he himself was among the mourners. He heard his 
name chanted as among the dead ; he saw the coffin lowered into 



DEATH 



87 



the vault. It deepened within him the sense of the vanity of all 
human greatness, and the sole and supreme dignity of divine 
things. Death teaches us with a mighty force. Let us in imag- 
ination often attend our own funeral, saying with Job, " Behold 
now I shall sleep in the dust and if thou seek me in the morning 
I shall not be " (Job vii. 21). When our Savior was on the eve 
of His death, He prayed for His disciples, saying: " Sanctify 
them in truth" (John xvii. 17). His death was to be for their 
sanctification in truth; and so shall our death be for our sancti- 
flcation if it be piously united to His. To give up my body 
to death by daily intention because " It is appointed for men once 
to die " (Heb. ix. 27), is to make good the word of the Apostle: 
"This is the will of God, your sanctification" (1 Thess. iv. 3). 
The daily pilgrim to the grave alone understands himself and 
God; he alone understands the difference between his immortal 
soul and his decaying body. St. John of the Cross says : " The 
first thing that a soul must have if it would attain to the knowl- 
edge of God is the knowledge of itself" {Maxim 299). This 
knowledge of self is the primer of wisdom's heavenly school, yet 
strange to say many who bestow most care upon their bodies 
have least knowledge of them, their uses and their end, and 
scarcely any knowledge of their souls and of God. As St. Fran- 
cis de Sales says, men mostly " have too much body and too little 
spirit" {Letters to Religious, Mackey, p. 432) ; it is shown by 
their choice between joys corporal and joys spiritual. Can any- 
one be more pitiably ignorant of his own interest than he who 
volunteers to be the slave of his body, yet such is the ignorance 
and folly of the self-indulgent. Those who never miss a rich 
feast for their bodies' joy, plume themselves as sensible men, 
and rate mortified Christians as simpletons. Many would-be 
followers of the Crucified are only " wise according to the flesh " 
(1 Cor. i. 26). God guide us, God guard us! For the insinua- 
tions of carnal wisdom are as incessant as those of pride, and 
almost as deceitful. St. Augustine warns us that " we ought to 
take food in the same way we take medicine, and with equal 



88 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



moderation and discretion." And he but echoes the more radical 
saying of St. Paul : " They that are Christ's have crucified their 
flesh with the vices and concupiscences " (Gal. v. 24). 

In offering our death to God in union with Christ's, we have 
a privilege superior to that of the angels. Oh, Jesus, by Thy 
death Thou didst save me and ennoble me, and by my death I 
save myself and honor Thee, dying in union with Thee and for 
the very same purpose — to pay the penalty for my sins. How 
greatly hast Thou favored me, oh, Jesus, by enabling me to ex- 
claim with Thy Apostle : " With Christ I am nailed to the cross " 
(Gal. ii. 19). 

Death is a terror to all living men except the Saints. 
Yet Jesus loved death, and has made His death the principal 
object of our adoration, the great event of His life. And His 
Apostle's example teaches us that a Christian's longing for death 
should brook no rival sentiment except zeal for the saving of 
souls. " I am straitened between two ; having a desire to be 
dissolved and to be with Christ, a thing by far the better. But to 
abide still in the flesh is needful for you " (Phil. i. 23, 24). 

So when a devout Christian can no longer serve his fel- 
lows, or when he feels that God is beckoning to him from on 
high, then his indifference to death is changed into a consuming 
desire to pass into the bosom of God. St. Chrysostom said of 
St. Ignatius the martyr that " he could lay down his life with as 
much ease and willingness as another man could put off his 
clothes." A poor woman dying in a charity hospital was nearing 
her end. The priest said to her : " Are you resigned to die ? " 
" Father," she answered, " I am poor, I have always been so, and 
my clothes are poor; and I give up this body of mine as easily 
as I would change an old dress." One of the surest of graces, 
granted by God to all His friends at the approach of death, 
whether they be penitent sinners, or guileless innocents, is an 
entire willingness to die, though death be a wrench of agony, 
to be followed by the crossing of the threshold of the divine 
judgment hall. 



DEATH 



89 



" You are dead," the Apostle admonishes us, " and your life 
is hid with Christ in God" (Col. iii. 3). A man who is dead 
by anticipation is not surprised at the actual coming of the 
fearful visitor. 

It is no small privilege to be able to discount in death so 
immense a debt as that of life itself. Oh, God, if my life be 
hid from men and their applause and blame, hid by my own 
self deliberately and entirely with the purpose that it may be 
passed more exclusively in Thy company, then the summons of 
death will have no fears for me, and with Thy Apostle I may say : 
" We had in ourselves the answer of death, that we should not 
trust in ourselves, but in God Who raiseth the dead " (2 Cor. 

i. 9 ). 



X. 



JUDGMENT. 

How various are our feelings as we think of death. To 
a pious Christian who is suffering from illness, it is a happy 
release from pain. To a soul burdened with sins unconfessed, 
unforgiven, it is a dark abyss, the thought of which he instantly 
expells from his mind. But good or bad, we all know that we 
are all moving ceaselessly along a street that ends in a court 
room, where Christ is enthroned as Judge, and where we are to 
be arraigned for trial. Alas that so many of us add fault 
upon fault, as step by step we shorten the distance between us 
and the stern glance of our Judge! Moreover, this awful prep- 
aration for our trial goes on under the continual observation 
of the Judge Himself, for as Job says: "Doth He not consider 
my ways, and number all my steps?'' (Job xxxi. 4.) 

To the carnal man our future state is covered with darkness 
and enshrouded in the mists of death. Who shall guide us in its 
ways and show us even its nearest borders? Every Christian 
has within himself the guide book of Eternity in his own con- 
science. His memory has been God's pen, with which He has 
inscribed upon the tablet of his soul the narrative of his life, 
with all its good and ill. Each conscious act, word, or even 
thought is written there, to be rigidly inspected finally by Him 
Who made the record. Death is the door which leads into the 
court room of Jesus Christ, our Creator, our Master. 

" The kingdom of heaven," says our Lord, " is like to a 
king who would take an account of his servants" (Matt, xviii. 
23). Not seldom the accounting begins without any warning, 
except the constant reproaches of conscience; the example of 
others snatched quickly away; the admonitions of devout friends 
who echo the language of the Holy Spirit : " Alan knoweth not 

(90) 



JUDGMENT 



9i 



his own end, but as fishes are taken with a hook, as birds are 
caught with a snare, so men are taken in the evil time " (Eccles. 
ix. 12). Look at your physical system, how complicated it is, 
and how easily it may break down; for every organ there are 
various mortal maladies. Look about you. The world you live 
in is filled with menaces of destruction. Death says, " I own the 
air you breathe; I sow it with evil pestilence as a farmer sows 
his field with grain. I own the earth you tread, and it conceals 
my fatal drugs. I have secreted poison in half the plants of 
the meadow and woods. I have the choice of a thousand ways 
of killing you. I command a vast army of accidental fatalities. 
Both open and secret are my battles against your life, and never 
yet have I lost a battle?" Such is the proclamation of death. 
"Behold the Judge standeth before the door" (James v. 9). 
Death is the door, the Judge is Jesus Christ. Yet, oh, my God! 
I go on full of self-complacency, with absolute assurance of the 
future. My King will never come, my accounts will never be 
examined. Can it be that God's word is true for me? " The 
Lord trieth the just and the unjust" (Ps. x. 6). Oh, 
Jesus! I have many defects, but none of them is so full 
of criminal folly as my ignoring the future citation of my soul 
before Thy awful tribunal. I deeply deplore this neglect, I 
promise to amend it, especially in my examination of conscience, 
which from this moment shall no longer be a mere formality, 
but a genuine anticipation of Thy dread scrutiny. No more 
counterfeit self-accusations. I will call to my side my guardian 
angel,' destined to support my spirit, when it shall quail under 
Thy all-seeing eye, and I will beg him to share with me his 
knowledge of Thy justice, and his knowledge of my weakness. 

Then indeed I shall know, not alone the foulness of my great 
sins, but the meanness of my little sins. For how often have 
I done and said trifling things, as I forced myself to rate them, 
which nevertheless were most unbecoming in a person of my holy 
calling. On that day I shall know the guilt of a bad temper, and 
taste the bitterness of remorse for uttering words wounding to 



92 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



the feelings of others. How would it sound — that hot, angry- 
answer of mine — if spoken over my dead body in God's judgment 
hall ? Well does the Wise Man say : " In all thy works remem- 
ber thy last end and thou shalt never sin" (Ecclus. vii. 40). 

St. Peter Fourier has said that in writing letters self-love 
drips from our finger tips into our ink, and through our pens on 
to our paper. How few of us realize that by tongue or pen we 
are incessantly drawing up evidence for or against ourselves 
at the divine tribunal according to the warning of Jesus Himself : 
" By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou 
shalt be condemned" (Matt. xii. 37). 

The soul stands alone before the Judge. Let the body sleep 
on, it is weary enough, but for the spirit the sleepless ages of 
eternity now begin. They begin with the judgment of its whole 
life by Jesus Christ, Whom it has lovingly worshipped or malig- 
nantly blasphemed. He stands robed in awful majesty, and He 
penetrates the soul with fear. Ah! now is seen the difference 
between the things of time and the things of eternity, for in the 
coffin, enwrapped in rottenness, is all that is of the world, "the 
concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes and the 
pride of life " (1 John ii. 16). And all that is of God is brought 
by the soul from the world into the light of that divine Face. 
The very least thought of sorrow for sin, or sympathy for Jesus 
Crucified, or trust in His merits, or love of one's neighbor for 
His sake is there with its claim of everlasting merit. 

The soul is covered with unforgiven sins as a body might be 
with ulcers: with spiritual sores which are now incurable for- 
ever. Alone, the soul must meet the Judge. The soul of a 
prince shall be as solitary as the soul of a swineherd; a master 
of twenty languages shall stammer out his answers as foolishly 
as an idiot. Wealth and honors are left behind, and only the 
works of love or of hate are now left to the soul. The guilt 
of unforgiven sins sinks deep into the soul, there to burn eter- 
nally. 

The sinner caught in the snare of his own sins feels, rather 



JUDGMENT 



93 



than hears, the dread announcement : " I am the Lord Who 
searches the hearts, and proves the reins ; Who gives to everyone 
according to his way, and according to the fruit of his devices " 
(Jer. xvii. 10). Oh, culprit soul at the tribunal of God, He 
knows all. He saw thee in every one of thy sins, for thou wert 
under His very eye when thou didst offend Him. He touched 
thee — His almighty hand was on thee, though thou knewest it not : 
His hand was on thee, His heart was turned against thee. 
The Heart that overflowed with kindness for the sinner during 
so many years, that sent so many warnings and pleaded by 
so many inspirations of grace, shall plead for its love never 
again, is done with warnings, and sits now upon the terrible 
throne of justice. And the angel of record proclaims : " Now 
therefore stand up, that I may plead in judgment against you 
before the Lord, concerning all the kindness of the Lord which 
He hath shown to you" (i Kings xii. 7). The Scripture says 
of the wicked man, that the devil shall stand " at his right hand " 
(Ps. cviii. 6) claiming his own, clamoring for that soul, whose 
innermost thought for so long gave hearty and entire welcome 
to his foulest suggestions, whose every sense and faculty was 
willingly subject to his allurements. How awful now is the 
monster's gladness in his victory! 

How different shall be my case (I humbly trust). How 
joyful will I be that Jesus Christ shall be my Judge, since my soul 
shall be all alive with love of Him. He is infinitely wise, there- 
fore He reads my heart's loyalty to Him, as it breathes forth its 
timid yet confident greetings: " I found Him Whom my soul 
loveth, I held Him and I would not let Him go " (Cant. iii. 4). 
He is all powerful, therefore He is mighty to save me; instead 
of fearing His power, I am glad of it. For the love of Jesus 
tempers the dread of the impending trial, and soothes the soul's 
anxious fears. With the yearning cry of the Psalmist it turns 
towards the Judge : " Say to my soul, I am thy salvation ; ' 
(Ps. xxxiv. 3). Lord, didst Thou not die for me? Have I not 
loved Thee as my salvation, and thanked Thee for Thy promise 



94 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



of heaven most sincerely? Now that I am helpless before Thee 
let me not perish. " What a boon it will be at the hour of death," 
exclaims St. Teresa, " when we are going we know not where, 
to think we are to be judged by Him Whom we have loved 
above all things, with an ardor that has crushed self-love " 
(Way of Perfection, Stanbrook, ch. xL, 7). How blessed the 
lot of that soul, who when he is cited to that fateful court may 
say truthfully: " Lord Jesus it is many a year since I willingly 
committed even a venial fault against Thy love ; I have persevered 
to the end ; may I not ask of Thee the fulfillment of Thy promise ? 
'Be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee the crown 
of life' (Apoc. ii. 10). Oh, Jesus! great has been my guilt. 
I confess that at times I have been a vile sinner against Thy law 
and Thy light, and Thy adorable Self. But when my enemy 
cries out against me, Thou shalt be my defense, I will point to 
Thee and say: 'He loved me, He delivered Himself up for 
me' (Gal ii. 20). Thy Blood, oh, Jesus, has ransomed me, 
Thy Spirit has long since accepted my repentance. The thought 
of Thee, my Savior, has been my mainstay for years; it has 
tempered my prosperity and comforted my adversity ; the remem- 
brance of Thy love on Calvary has aroused my sloth unto prayer 
and unto work; it has overflowed my soul with thanksgiving, 
it has consoled me in my doubts ; it has flooded my death chamber 
with the yearnings of blessed hope." 

"Depart!" or "Come!" A simple word is spoken, and 
eternal joy or woe has begun. "Depart!" Not: "Thou hast 
failed, but I give thee leave to try once more, armed against thy 
weakness by the memory of this day." No, not so, but thus: 
" Thy time of probation is past and gone forever. Although the 
world shall last yet thousands of years, not one moment of them 
all shall be thine. Many times over hast thou been pardoned 
and given further opportunity to love Me — never again. Dis- 
honor and suffering and bitterness of spirit are thine forever. 
'Depart!'" 

When the joyful word, "Come!" is spoken, the Son of 



JUDGMENT 



95 



God causes the soul to behold, as in a noonday sun, the infinite 
goodness of God expended so lavishly upon it during its whole 
life, eliciting an adoration and love more rapt than the earthly 
ecstasies of any Saint. At the same time the happy soul beholds 
its good works shining with heaven's light, for our Lord has said : 

" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for their works 

do follow them " (Apoc. xiv. 13) : all works and words and 
desires which spring from love of God and man, even the 
least, even those that were forgotten, even such as the soul 
doubted were praiseworthy. Then what seemed life, a weary 
round of spiritual exercises, will be seen as a great ladder reach- 
ing heavenwards into the Heart of Jesus, luminous with angels 
ascending upwards with the soul's merits, and coming downwards 
ladened with God's plentiful graces. Then shall be realized 
our Savior's promise to souls " without guile." " Amen, amen, 
I say to you, you shall see the heavens opened and the angels 
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man " (John 
i- 51)- 

Consider attentively those two words of our Lord, " Depart " 
and " Come." The moment they are spoken thou art saved 
or lost, for He Who speaks them is thy divine Judge. What 
thou hast done settles thy fate for eternity, not what thou shalt 
do. Millions of sinners shall be saved in the future; thou, now 
or never. Thou shalt henceforth be unspeakably happy with 
God's own happiness, or unspeakably miserable with thy own 
unchangeable wickedness. 

And now let us meditate briefly on the second judgment 
of God, the last or general one, which affirms the particular one, 
and promulgates its sentence to the whole world. As the body's 
destruction immediately preceded the individual soul's first ar- 
raignment before God, so shall the destruction of this material 
world go before the second arraignment, which is that of the 
entire race of man. Our Savior has prophesied it with much 
detail, beginning with the destruction of the universe: "And 
immediately after the tribulations of those days, the sun shall 



9 6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars 
shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be 
moved" (Matt. xxiv. 29). What a lesson this is of the vanity 
of all worldly things. 

Judgment day has come, the last prayer has been offered, 
the last crime committed; the last hour is struck. The death 
sentence of the human race is uttered, for the end of the world 
is at hand. The heavens have passed away, the earth has been 
scourged by fire, that universal conflagration whose fierce rage 
is foretold in many parts of Holy Writ. "The day of the 
Lord," exclaims St. Peter, " in which the heavens shall pass 
away with great violence and the elements shall be melted with 
heat, and the earth and the works that are in it shall be 
burnt up " (2 Peter iii. 10). This busy world has been covered 
with flames and becomes a scorching desert, a dark and vacant 
orb wheeling through space. No sound of human voice is heard, 
nor voice of bird or beast, no dash of the waves of the sea, 
nor rippling of the waters of the streams; not a blade of grass 
nor a leaf of a tree is left. Our beautiful globe is now a vast 
solitude, a heap of ashes; let it perish! But no, for it is a 
shrine of God's love; it is the grave of His Saints and of His 
faithful children ; it is about to be used as the hall of His justice. 

The hour is come. The darkness is pierced by a gleam from 
above, steadily brightening like the dawn of a new day, till in 
the midst of dazzling splendor the form of an angel is seen 
approaching the earth. " And I saw another mighty angel," 

says St. John, " come down from the heaven and his face 

was as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire and he set his 

right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the land. And 
he cried out with a loud voice" (Apoc. x. 1, 2, 3). St. Paul 
speaks of this divine summons as the trumpet of God calling 
men to judgment : "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, 
at the last trumpet, for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall 
rise again" (1 Cor. xv. 52). Arise ye dead and come to 
judgment! The dark vaults of hell resound with this command, 



JUDGMENT 



97 



and its inmates are driven forth upon the earth. Arise ye 
dead and come to judgment! Purgatory ceases to be, and its 
penitent souls, glorious now with their perfect atonement, appear 
upon the earth. Arise ye dead and come to judgment! Heaven 
suspends its happy anthems, and its millions and millions of happy 
spirits, in awesome expectation, wing their flight downward to 
the universal assembly of their race. All mankind must hear 
their Sovereign Master proclaim their eternal destiny. 

As these souls in their countless myriads touch the surface 
of the earth, each one draws to him the ashes of his body, as the 
lodestone attracts the filings of steel, " for the dead shall rise 
again incorruptible" (i Cor. xv. 52). Behold the races of 
mankind mingling together for mutual judgment and for final 
farewell. Behold the friends of God serene and beautiful, ar- 
rayed in the habiliments of heaven, passing in and out among 
the monstrous forms of the enemies of God. 

Let us pause to consider how rightly God claims the general 
judgment of all mankind assembled publicly together, since in 
no better way can He vindicate His honor. Every sin of man 
is a shame to God, Who is man's Father and must feel the 
disgrace of His children. The honor of God is openly profaned 
by sinners, flagrantly so by certain classes of them, such as 
blasphemers, apostates, drunkards, wicked parents, unnatural 
children. These and all other sinners seem to defy God in their 
lifetime with immunity. His honor is, therefore, entitled finally 
to a public vindication. Furthermore, God's servants merit a 
public vindication, for they have been laughed to scorn by the 
impious. If a man forgive his enemies for Christ's sake, he 
is derided as a coward. If he is strict in the observance of 
the Ten Commandments, he is laughed at as a fool. If he 
follows a retired, prayerful life, he is called a misanthrope. If 
he yields up his rights to others for Christ's sake, he is scofTed 
at as mean spirited. Now the great day has come when these 
faithful followers of Christ shall be vindicated. They shall be 
publicly exhibited not only as the friends of God, but as the only 



98 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



true men, the real type of our race and nature. With the end 
of the world comes the end of the criminal folly of the wicked, 
and the justification of the wisdom of Christ's faithful adherents. 
Behold then the shame of the lost! We are told that what 
criminals most fear on the gallows is not the agony of 
death itself, but rather the shame of being hanged in pub- 
lic. It is worse than death to the guilty wretch to come 
out before the great mob, pinioned, bareheaded, the hangman 
shoving him forward, the gibbet looming overhead. So shall 
it be with every lost soul at the end of the world. St. Basil 
says that the shame of the judgment day will be a worse torture 
than the fire and darkness of hell itself. 

Who can picture the misery of hypocrites on that day, and of 
those who have caused others to sin. Men seldom sin alone, 
though they may seem to do so. The most hidden wickedness 
does some harm to the sinner's fellowmen, if only indirectly. 
It is just, therefore, that finally secret vice should be publicly 
unveiled. The last judgment is indeed a time of woe to secret 
sinners, a day of doom to hypocrites. 

Two men were once in hot dispute, when one took up pencil 
and paper and began to write down what the other was saying. 
Instantly he stopped talking ; and then said with much agitation : 
" I will not stand that, I will not say another word." Our 
conscience writes and pictures thus all our deeds and words 
with the truthfulness of God, so we carry in our own souls 
the principal witness of our good and evil, which is to be 
fully exhibited at the last day. " The Lord searcheth all hearts," 
says Holy Scripture, " and understandeth all the thoughts of 
minds " ( I Par. xxviii. 9) . At the day of judgment He will make 
that prerogative common to all men — we shall know one another 
as God knows us. 

In our vocation of perfection every sin is doubled by one 
of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy complicates the malice of other sins, 
deepens it, deceives men and outrages God. It is the meanest 
of vices, it makes one's life a living lie. At the last judgment 



JUDGMENT 



99 



it shall be allotted its full share of ignominy; on that day we 
shall be seen even as we are. Our Savior says of hypocrites 
and liars : " Without are dogs and sorcerers, and unchaste and 
murderers and servers of idols, and everyone that loveth and 
maketh a lie" (Apoc. xxii. 15). The reckoning of that awful 
day awaits liars and whisperers and mischief makers — the pest 
of communities and the ruin of families, wrenching asunder in 
hate those whom God has joined together in love. An awful 
day of manifestation and execration of sneaking sinners and 
underhand evildoers shall be that day of doom. 

Chrises sentence will close the judgment day. Oh, let us 
not dwell on the sentence of eternal wrath launched against the 
wicked when the terrible arraignment is over. Please God it is 
not for us. Let us each and all humbly beg of the almighty 
Judge : " Let my heart be undefiled in Thy justifications that I 
may not be confounded " (Ps. cxviii. 80). When the sheep shall 
be divided from the goats, let us trust that we shall be placed 
on the right hand of the Son of Man, that we shall look upon 
Him with perfect gladness, and respond quickly to His words 
of everlasting life : " Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess 
the kingdom prepared for you" (Matt. xxv. 34). Dost Thou 
bid me come to Thee, oh, Jesus, Thou beloved of my heart? 
My eager ambition, my only joy, these many years has been 
to come to Thee, to remain with Thee forever. Now I hear 
Thy words of invitation, " Come, ye blessed," now I see Thy 
gracious arms outstretched to receive me. " Thy voice is sweet, 
and Thy face comely" (Cant. ii. 14) ; yea, Lord Jesus, I come to 
Thee. Thy love shall be my joy throughout the eternal years; 
Thy Father's house my abiding place forever. 



XI. 



ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 

" Between us and you there is fixed a great chaos, so that they who 
would pass from hence to you cannot, nor from thence come hither" 
(Luke xvi. 26*). 

Chaos will one day divide the human race — chaos; vacant, 
silent, immeasurable space, with neither earth beneath it, nor 
sky above it. On one side the bliss of Paradise, and the friends 
of God; on the other, torments and flames, and the enemies of 
God in eternal banishment. What a terrible fate. What horror 
can compare with the least possibility of such a fate. How 
business and pleasure and ambition fade away into foolish 
dreams, in presence of the thought of damnation; and how sin 
takes on its real aspect, for sin is the monstrous shape that opens 
the door of hell to us, and closes it upon us forever. Let us feel 
in spirit that fire ; let us look into those fierce and hateful counte- 
nances; let us listen to the blaspheming voices of the immense 
multitude of the lost, and draw therefrom lessons of fear of 
God, and desire for heaven. 

To meditate thus has been the sad task of the more thought- 
ful men of every race from the beginning of the world. The 
eternal separation of the good and evil spirits has been a dogma 
of every religion, false as well as true. It was the belief of the 

*The complete text is this : And the rich man also died, and was 
buried in hell. And lifting up his eyes when he was in torments, he saw 
Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried, and said : 
Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip 
the tip of his finger in water, to cool my tongue, for I am tormented in 
this flame. And Abraham said to him : Son, remember that thou didst 
receive good things in thy lifetime, and likewise Lazarus' evil things; but 
now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And besides all this, between 
us and you there is fixed a great chaos, so that they who would pass from 
hence to you cannot, nor from thence come hither" (Luke xvi. 22-26). 

(lOO) 



ETERNAL PUNISHMENT 



101 



ancient Hindoos in the dim ages of that earliest people. The 
sacred books of the Persians record the doctrine of eternal 
punishment before the days of Abraham, and so do the monu- 
i ments of ancient Egypt. The Greeks and Romans were the 
most enlightened nations of antiquity, and in their degeneracy 
they had every reason to desire that iniquity should escape future 
retribution; yet their mythology teaches eternal punishment in a 
thousand places, and that dread belief was taught even by their 
philosophers, who scoffed at the mythology and the superstition 
of the common people, and yet accepted the doctrine of the 
eternal separation of good and evil souls hereafter. We find 
it taught by Greek and Latin poets, historians, orators, and 
legislators. Indeed, the few leading pagans who refused belief 
in eternal retribution, usually denied immortality altogether. 

It seems to have been inseparable from every enduring and 
widely-diffused religious belief in human history. Hell has a 
name in every tongue, ancient or modern, a place in every wide- 
spread system of morality. In our own times the sects which 
reject it are few and dwindling; and usually skeptical of other 
articles of religious belief. Why this common consent — as it 
may rightly be called — upon a religious tenet so unwelcome to 
sinful humanity? Perhaps God has supernaturally interfered 
to preserve this confession of His sovereign justice amid the 
ruin of faith in so many other truths of His original revelation. 
Or perhaps it is an inevitable conclusion from sound reasoning, 
and witnesses to humanity's native feeling of the absolute differ- 
ence, here and hereafter, between good and evil. Men are con- 
stantly passing into eternity, some of them full of evil, others 
of good; and reason affirms that conditions so radical shall be 
considered permanent till evidence is given of a change. What is 
so essentially different as a bad spirit and a good one? — essen- 
tially, absolutely, eternally different. There is as much differ- 
ence between the bad and the good in this life as between hell 
and heaven in the next. This is one reason why men have made 
the existence of eternal punishment a universal dogma. 



102 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Some take refuge in the thought of a future probation, by 
means of which men bad in this life become good in the next. 
But this delusion is founded on no revelation of God, backed by 
no experience of human turpitude, derived from no process of 
reasoning. If men will be wicked for fifty years, how can you 
know that they will cease to be wicked after fifty centuries? 
Is not this life long enough for a fair trial of men's good will? 
Do men grow morally better in the process of sinning? And 
how, may we ask, is a period of probation which is certain 
to end in virtue, compatible with men's free will? The problem 
of the existence of evil and its future punishment is not without 
its difficulties; but how do you lessen them by transferring 
from time to eternity the change of a free soul from sin to 
repentance ? 

Others, relying on visionary interpretations of some texts 
of Scripture, abolish hell by substituting the annihilation of 
sinners at the point of death — a deeper mystery than hell itself. 
Annihilation is an insufferable, unthinkable mystery. And as 
a matter of fact, can either of these theories have been the 
true one all the time, whilst during long series of human genera- 
tions every class of teacher, pagan and Hebrew and Christian, 
has taught the contrary? 

You know that the Church of Christ stands or falls with 
this dogma, as venerable in the tradition of the ages as it is 
terrifying to human depravity. It is dogmatic Catholic truth 
that there is a hell in dire reality; that its pains are eternal; 
that impenitent sinners are there imprisoned at the moment 
of death; and that the penalties they suffer are various in 
accordance with their various guilt. 

We need hardly dwell on the Scripture proofs, so numer- 
ous, so plain, so universally distributed through a book so true 
and so divine that it has God for its author. We could cite 
literally hundreds of passages. Call the text of the discourse, 
in which Jesus Christ, the most loving heart that ever beat, 
the sinner's dearest, most constant and most patient friend, 



ETERNAL PUNISHMENT 



103 



declared to the unrepentant and reprobate souls in hell : " Between 
us and you there is fixed a great chaos, so that they who would 
pass from hence to you cannot, nor from thence come hither." 
It is the fiat of infinite power, sitting in judgment upon souls 
who have deliberately and finally spurned the advances of infinite 
love. 

We are far from saying that there is no mystery here. But 
the nearer we approach God, the more do His infinite attributes 
overwhelm us with mystery. If God's justice were , the only 
mystery, we should indeed be confounded. But is it so? Is 
that awful place a greater mystery than Calvary? Is infinite 
love less amazing than infinite justice? From whatever side 
we approach the divine majesty, we meet with incomprehen- 
sible truths. Look at that gibbet at the gate of Jerusalem: it 
is dripping with the blood of the God-man dying for sinners. 
Tell me, can you explain that more easily than the spectacle 
that appals us as we gaze into hell? What, again, can com- 
pare in mystery with the criminal folly and the deliberate malice 
of an instructed Catholic calmly risking hell, year in and year 
out, for the sake of some disgusting self-indulgence? 

Mystery or no mystery, we must accept God's teaching 
through His Church. Whether it pleases us or not, we know 
that He is responsible for Catholic doctrine. Now divine truth 
is one. God's plan of time, eternity, reward and punishment 
is one. God, conscience, the reality of good and evil, probation 
here and recompense in joy or sorrow hereafter, the Atonement 
of Christ and its criminal rejection by mortal sin — all the facts 
and events and dogmas of religion make one inseparably con- 
nected body of doctrine. The Garden of Eden, Sinai, Bethlehem, 
Calvary, the valley of the judgment, the prison of Gehenna, 
are all one revelation of the single purpose of the one God to 1 
save men. They are all an offer of infinite love by the Supreme 
Ruler of the universe, to be accepted or rejected freely, and 
with due recompense in weal or woe in either case. Notice, then, 
that the denial of eternal punishment is usually a sign of universal 



104 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



doubt. It means the rejection of God's Church, the denial of 
the inspiration of Holy Scripture, of the Divinity of Christ, 
and that He died for our salvation, or that we need salvation, 
and too often ends in the denial even of the guilt of sin and 
human immortality. Christian faith, on the other hand, accepts 
all, and so it must be. I cannot be a Christian and take Christ's 
teaching piece-meal, picking and choosing what pleases me and 
rejecting the rest. And, practically speaking, we know that if 
there is any way whatsoever of dealing with God through con- 
science, it is based on the belief that as sure as there is a God, 
He has a plan of future rewards and punishments, both equally 
eternal. Reasoning minds, therefore, have all but universally 
given eternity as a quality no less to future punishment than 
to future rewards. 

Let us now consider the nature of the punishment of sinners 
hereafter. We know that hell is banishment from God. But 
that means from God's love, for from His presence there can 
be no escape, nor from His power: "If I descend into hell, 
Thou art there" (Ps. cxxxviii. 8), exclaims the Psalmist; even 
in hell art Thou with Thy awful justice, with Thy everlasting 
reproaches. This it is that generates in the lost soul the essence 
of his suffering. Whatever else engages him, the thought of 
God is never absent, especially the thought of God's goodness. 
A moment's consideration reveals the torment of this mental 
state. 

You know that mortal sin is turning away from God, as a 
soldier treacherously turns away from his colors and his country 
to join the enemy. Now, this aversion from God is always 
an insult to God, and is often openly contemptuous and presump- 
tuous, a preference of something utterly vile, such as sensual 
indulgence, love of money or ignoble sloth. In hell this con- 
tempt of God will be turned into terror, aversion will be hard- 
ened into hatred — hatred of a Being that the reprobate knows 
is worthy of infinite love. No other suffering in hell can equal 
the sense of degradation of a Christian finding himself hating 



ETERNAL PUNISHMENT 



105 



Jesus Crucified; and with this horrible feeling of hating God is 
the sinner's realization that God hates him — the final, complete 
conviction that he is and must ever continue to be an object 
of profoundest aversion to a being infinitely loving. This fills 
the lost soul with a tumult of horror. There rages forever within 
him a torrent of baffled rage against God, of hate of the divine 
goodness, of blasphemous reproach against God. Something 
like this it is that is called the pain of loss. The reprobate soul 
has lost God as friend, and found Him (O how many times 
had he been warned that he ran the risk of it!) as judge, as 
executioner, as the stern adjuster of right against wrong. The 
power that keeps the fire burning him, that keeps alive the worm 
of remorse gnawing at his vitals forever, is the power of om- 
nipotent deity, eternally, irrevocably vindicating His love, so 
long despised, so many times set aside, coldly and calmly, even 
with ridicule and scoffing. Now forever and ever the lost soul 
seeks to match God's infinite justice with an infinitude of hate. 

Can you conceive a worse torment? Did you ever hear 
of a deeper horror? The more that soul suffers, the more he 
hates God ; the more he hates God, the more he loathes himself. 
God — this is his thought — is infinitely good, and I hate Him 
with every atom of my being; Jesus Christ died for love of me, 
and my inmost soul burns with hatred for Jesus Christ. I hate 
Him with deliberate, unchanging, defiant hatred. A thousand 
times over He offered me His love and I refused it. I loved 
women and drink and money better. I rejected His love; and 
now He forces His justice upon me and I must accept it, and I 
must and I do return it with hate. I must curse Him, and I do 
curse Him forever. O well does our Lord counsel us to fear 
not anyone who can inflict death of the body, but rather to fear 
" Him Who hath power to cast both soul and body into hell " 
(Luke xii. 5). Yet this can never happen until our own malice 
has earned it. 

Coupled with this fierce conflict of the soul with its own 
better self — a war never interrupted, never to be followed by 



io6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



peace — is its equally constant longing for the happiness of heaven. 
Think of a soul engulfed in hell, and yet never ceasing to long 
for heaven. What words can describe the misery of being shut 
out from Paradise: the loss of that glorious region we call 
Heaven, a place abounding in every beauty, its joys exceeding 
the brightest dreams of youth, the deepest yearnings of old 
age, all perfectly adapted to our nature, absolutely fitted to 
enrapture beings of our nature, " prepared for you," as our 
Redeemer proclaims, " from the foundation of the world " (Matt, 
xxv. 34). Reflect what it will be to realize the full bliss of such 
a state, and, at the same time, to be buried in a place of torments 
originally made for the devil and his fallen angels (Matt. xxv. 
41 ) . To be shut out from Paradise by an irrevocable sentence ; 
to be excluded from the perfect enjoyment of God, and of 
Christ; the sweet familiarity with the angels and saints in their 
bewildering variety of glory and of love; to be denied the least 
access to them, the most remote sight or sound of them, yet 
never to be able to forget them, nor cease to long for them while 
furiously cursing them; dwelling in the company of demons, 
the most ferocious, the most cruel of beings, and associated 
eternally with men and women the most abandoned, the most 
malicious. 

Closely allied to this aspect of the pain of loss is the full 
realization of eternity. During every pain in hell, the lost soul 
breathes in and out the thought of eternity as if it were a 
mental fire. " Depart from Me, ye accursed, into everlasting 
fire" (Matt. xxv. 41) — these are the words of eternal farewell 
at the day of judgment. Eternity! To the infinite mind of 
God it is an everlasting present; to Him there is neither past 
nor future, only eternal now. Not so to the created mind. 
The reprobate soul must wearily count over every hour of a 
succession of hours that never shall end. Number the drops of 
water in the ocean, and mark a hundred years for each drop; 
then add (if you could) all those years together; and now 
imagine (if it were possible) the myriads of millions of ages 



ETERNAL PUNISHMENT 



107 



it would all amount to. To the infinite God it is nothing, not 
a brief half hour. But what would it be to me in such a 
place as hell, knowing as I must, while each moment wearily 
passes away, that when at last those myriads of millions of 
ages were done, my punishment would be no nearer its end 
than at the beginning. 

Here, then, as is commonly supposed, is the seat of that 
awful state of mind we call despair. But I know not if it be so. 
The poet says that " Hope springs eternal in the human breast." 
Will not the reprobate suffer from delusive hopes of deliverance, 
an unbidden, unreasonable, dreamy expectancy of his being for 
some reason or other made an exception and saved at last? 
Delusive indeed, yet rising by instinct of nature only to torment 
and mock the soul more cruelly. 

An army officer who lost his right arm in battle returned 
after a prolonged absence to the service, apparently quite recov- 
ered, but soon he resigned. "It is all right," he said, " when 
things are quiet; but if any danger or excitement arises, I feel 
the ghost of my amputated arm moving and pointing and waving 
in the air — it gives me an insufferable torment." So will the 
frightful delusion of hope, the very ghost of hope, torment the 
sinner. In his lifetime he presumed on God's mercy, he abused 
the divine patience; in hell he shall suffer accordingly. 

Eternity ! O let us place those words never and forever on 
one side, and on the other the sum total of our sins, and strive 
to realize what they should mean to us to be forever damned; 
never saved. 

O what a fool, what a monster of folly, to run the risk 
of spending eternal ages in such a place. Prayer would have 
saved him, and instead he blasphemed God; Mass would have 
saved him, and Confession and Communion, as they did save 
many of his bad companions, but he made a joke of such things, 
and he kept on in his wickedness. How often was he warned — 
and in vain; how man)'' times did his very sins sicken him, and 
yet he returned to them. 



io8 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



The gnawing worm of memory, as our blessed Savior calls 
it (Mark ix. 45), that faculty which makes the lost soul's life 
before and after death one, forces him to live his whole life 
over again — the drunkard in the saloon, at home in the midst 
of his children whom he is deliberately ruining; the libertine 
amid his evil company ; the gambler with his cards ; the sluggard 
amid his criminal neglect of holy Mass and of the sacraments. 
The reprobate miserably thinks over every hour of his existence ; 
committing every sin over again; recalling every act, word, 
thought of malice or of foulness, all with the vividness of a 
memory preternaturally acute. Such shall be the thoughts of his 
mind throughout eternity. In memory he shall see his parents and 
his other devout friends, whose good example he disregarded, al- 
though they are far away in heaven, and he shall hear them again 
reproaching him as they did in life and weeping over him ; he shall 
see and hear them in a dreadful memory forever and forever. 

But enough, perhaps too much, of this terrible subject. 
Let us lift our eyes and our hearts away from the deep pit. 
It is not to be our dwelling place. No, the blessedness of 
heaven shall be ours. However much the envious demon may call 
up my sins against me — they are long since forgiven. However 
much he may invoke God's wrath against me, I invoke His love 
in my favor, I trust in His mercy with absolute confidence. I 
know that my Redeemer says of me, poor penitent sinner though 
I be : " Because he hath hoped in Me, I will deliver him : I will 
protect him, because he hath known My name" (Ps. xc. 14). 

Let us also do what we can to save our fellowmen from 
hell, and if we can do little else, let us at least pray. We can 
at least weep and mourn with the Savior of the world over the 
loss of so many souls for whom He died, lamenting with Him 
that for them His blood has been shed in vain. Who that loves 
God and Christ can behold the dreadful prevalence of mortal sin, 
without sorrowfully exclaiming with the prophet : " I looked 
upon the transgressors, and I pined away because they kept not 
Thy word" (Ps. cxviii. 158). 



XII. 



TEPIDITY AND VENIAL SIN. 

The difference between mortal sin and venial sin is es- 
sential, absolute; it is the difference between an enemy's hate 
and a coward's love; or, again, between a timid friendship and 
total indifference. But a timid friendship toward God often be- 
comes indistinguishable from moral cowardice. A silent friend 
is of little use in a crowd of howling enemies. Vanity and hu- 
man respect, self-conceit and greediness, forgetfulness of the 
comfort of others, vulgarity and uncouthness, ill-temper and 
blind antipathies, gossiping and rash judgment, petty lying, the 
attributing of unworthy motives and harboring of suspicions, 
the multiform sin of indolence, and all symptoms of moral de- 
generacy, extending often over nearly every wakeful hour of 
life; even such a widely-distributed outbreak of weaknesses is 
no more mortal sin than the itch is the small-pox. For mortal 
sin, as its name indicates, is the death of divine love in the soul. 
Worse than the death of the body is the loss of the love of one 
whose love is our life. How often do men and women seek 
death by suicide when, by some gross wickedness of theirs, 
the love which they covet has been turned to hate. By mortal 
sin the love of God Himself is forfeited, and that love is the 
soul's life. 

But venial sin holds to the divine lover, though it be with 
but one hand. It violates no grave commandment, or if it does, 
it does so by accident, and lacks deadly guilt by lacking full ad- 
vertence. " There is a kind of advertency," says St. Teresa, 
" which is very deliberate, and another so sudden that to com- 
mit the sin and to be aware that we have done it, seem one and 

(109) 



no 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



the same thing; we hardly realize what we are about, and yet 
to a certain extent we are aware of it." And then the Saint 
characteristically adds : " But from willfully committing any sin, 
however small, may God deliver us " ( Way of Perfection, Stan- 
brook, ch. xli., 3). By this lapse, due to want of vigilance, love is 
not lost, but the power of proving it by the practice of virtue 
is weakened, and the soul that once was active is now heavy 
with cowardice. Like our Savior's watchers at Gethsemane: 
"He found them sleeping for sorrow" (Luke xxii. 45). 

A really bad heart debates little about the difference be- 
tween little sins and great sins; passion, self-indulgence, self- 
interest, proud aversions, all rush in regardless of the protest 
of a conscience stupefied by the loss of sanctifying grace. In 
a good heart there is, also, small debate about the difference 
between great and little sins, but here love sweeps onward, clear- 
ing out of its road every obstacle, little and great, indiscrimi- 
nately. Such a one when he falls is like the man spoken of by 
the Holy Ghost, " that slippeth with the tongue, but not from 
the heart " (Ecclus. xix. 16). A soul determined to do the whole 
will of the Beloved has little use for casuistry. 

It is a miserable thing that so many ordinary and well- 
meaning Christians should make so little of venial sins. It is as 
if one said : " Oh, that rash on my skin is nothing, it is only 
the itch; no one dies of the itch; if it were small-pox, ah, that 
would be truly alarming." 

We must not think that venial sins arising from weak- 
ness, nervousness, ignorance, or half-scotched microbes of 
former moral fooleries, can by any cumulative force crowd 
one's soul into the ranks of God's actual enemies. Not by any 
means. Yet the case is different with grosser venial sins, 
where deliberateness is full though the matter be light ; or where 
a settled complacency has smothered the protests of conscience; 
or where the faults are committed, not in dribbles but in tor- 
rents, habit assuming that place of majesty which belongs to 
sanctifying grace. Even such a state may not be one of mortal 



TEPIDITY AND VENIAL SIN 



in 



sin, but although ten thousand mosquitoes are not equal to one 
rattlesnake in venom, yet a single one of them, as modern 
science demonstrates, may infuse the germs of yellow fever into 
my blood. Therefore the whole scheme of true service must 
consist in purifying our minds from palliations of mortal sinful- 
ness, and limiting venial sins to occasions of surprise and in- 
deliberateness. 

Tepidity is venial sin, reduced to a recognized system; and 
it may be defined as contentment of mind with keeping out of 
manifest mortal sin. The signs are slackness about ordinary re- 
ligious observances — slackness of principle; readiness to dispute 
the claims of obedience; readiness to argue against a strict 
obedience to a rule of life, especially the practice of mental 
prayer and spiritual reading. A growing discontent with one's 
state of life, and with the holy rule of law, becomes chronic, 
placing one always on the downward side in differences and dis- 
putes about practices of fervor. Then begins self-justification by 
falsely-applied maxims : " One must not be fanatical ;" " Let 
us go forward by degrees ;" " Common sense is true spirituality 
" Many things in the lives of saints are to be admired rather 
than imitated ;" " After all we are not living in the Middle 
Ages ;" " Beware of singularity ;" all true in themselves and 
having their use among fervent characters, but the very deceits 
of Satan in a tepid man's mouth. 

Downright grievous sinners the tepid are not, but deliber- 
ate venial sin is their established custom. They practice virtues 
of the cheaper kind; they are patient, when there is nothing to 
suffer; gentle, when uncontradicted; humble, when honor is un- 
touched. They seek to acquire virtue without mortification, are 
willing to do many things, but not to take the kingdom of heaven 
by violence (Faber's Growth in Holiness, p. 468). Such are the 
tepid, and of such our Savior says : " I know thy works, that 
thou art neither cold nor hot. I would that thou wert cold or 

hot. But because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will begin 

to vomit thee out of My mouth " (Apoc. iii. 15, 16). It is hardly 



112 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



too much to say that such a frame of mind is hateful to God, 
because it is an irritating attempt to serve two masters ; because 
in most cases it is a relapse from a state of fervor ; because it is 
man's stinginess flung in the face of God's generosity. 

The tepid man is without spiritual motive, engaged in good 
living simply when and where it is easy. His habitual dis- 
regard of the grades of guilt in venial offences may easily be 
succeeded by a more serious obliquity: " He that despiseth small 
things faileth by little and little" (Ecclus. xix. i). Venial sins 
that are squarely deliberate put an instant stop to spiritual prog- 
ress, for spiritual progress consists precisely in reducing little 
defects to the region of indeliberateness, and elevating motives of 
virtue into the region of love. When conscience proclaims the 
deliberate commission of a venial fault to a fervent soul, pen- 
ance immediately follows, almost automatically — a necessary con- 
dition for resuming spiritual advance. A single act of self- 
indulgence or of self-will, if done squarely with wide open 
advertence, effectually stagnates the waters of divine love flowing 
into the soul. "A slight failing in one virtue," says St. Teresa. 
" is enough to put all the others to sleep " {Life, ch. xxxvi., 16). 

De Ponte affirms that tepidity is a form of the capital sin 
of sloth, and in the shadow of approaching death is " near 
neighbor to hell '"' (Meditation on Sloth). There are jugglers 
who exhibit their skill in throwing knives. They set a man up 
against a wide board several paces distant, and then cast knives 
at him, so as barely to miss him, and just to avoid killing him, 
never quite touching his face, neck, and breast, but fixing the 
knives close about him on the board. So that spiritual juggler, 
the tepid Christian, makes a target of his soul. He skillfully 
avoids the fatal stroke of mortal sin, but he indeed juggles with 
eternal doom. How woefully different from the finer motived 
spirits, who have a real terror even of manifest imperfections. 
They never indulge in bitter sarcasm (Faber says that " from 
the beginning of the world until now sarcasm was never less 
than a venial sin") ; they never heap ridicule on silly or faulty 



TEPIDITY AND VENIAL SIN 113 



friends, nor spend hours in idle reading or chatting, nor do they 
ever procrastinate with duty. In these fervent spirits has grown 
a rooted incapacity to do anything secret or mean ; a settled con- 
viction that their loyalty to God must be valorous. They look 
to Him with solid trust to grant them final perseverance, and 
to that end ever to increase their horror of mortal sin. 

The sloppy tendencies of the tepid render them constantly 
liable to fall fatally. For, as St. Gregory the Great says : " It 
comes to pass that the soul accustomed to light transgressions 
has no horror of more serious ones. Fed and nourished by these 
lighter faults, such a one finally arrives at a state in which he 
imagines he may have attained to a sort of prescriptive right 
to commit them. Losing all fear about lesser sins, he at last gives 
up fear about greater ones " {Liber Pastoralis, Part III., ch. 
xxiii.). Limiting one's efforts merely to abstaining from grave 
sins, when it becomes established policy, signifies a stubborn in- 
terior refusal to- go forward in the practice of virtue. 

The love of Christ always urges us to better things (2 Cor. 
v. 14) ; standing still is therefore a rejection of grace. To stand 
still might not be so unworthy, but we stand still whilst we hear 
Christ saying: "Come, follow Me" (Luke xviii. 22). No dis- 
ciple is true who in answer to his Master's word : " Forward ! " 
says : " I will not go backward, it is enough for me to hold my 
own." But he will not hold his own, he will go backward. 

A lukewarm soul in the midst of those who are called to 
perfection is a standing menace to the fervor of all. His ex- 
ample is a picture of complacent cowardice, and it is especially 
injurious if he happens to succeed well in external works. He is 
like a derelict ship, one which is water-logged and abandoned, 
yet floats on the high seas, offering fatal facility for collision 
to good ships. High views of honor and of valor in the service 
of God are the foundation of our hope against venial sins. A 
fervent soul is as eager to avoid petty faults as a lukewarm soul 
is to avoid mortal sins. This is the plain road of perfection. 
It is far removed from the temporizing and compromising spirit 



ii4 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



of half-hearted Catholics, who are so numerous as to form a 
great world of moral tepidity, enveloping and threatening to 
overwhelm high principled men and women. " If you wish to 
be directed by the Spirit of God, listen no longer to the world," 
says Fenelon. Small offences become great in our eyes as God's 
light grows bright within us ; just as the sun when rising reveals 
to us the clear outlines of objects of which we had but a con- 
fused perception in the night-time. 

Add to this the love of God's standards of loyalty and the 
practice of penance, and scarcely any root of offence can long 
linger in your heart. The best penances are the more appro- 
priate ones — to protest to God and ourselves against uncharitable 
words by begging the pardon of the one offended; to punish 
overfeeding by underfeeding at the next meal, or neglect of 
spiritual exercises by doubling them later on. Penance and pen- 
alties go together, and their efficacy is far in excess of their 
difficulty. Even the feeling of penance, which is the sense 
of wearing the garb of God's states prison, is not without benefit. 
Shame upon thee, let us say to our soul, that thou shouldst 
dream of heavenly joys since thou art smirched with such 
earthly stains as bad temper or indolence. The Venerable Bar- 
onius relates that once, when very ill, he had a vision. He 
thought he had died, and that his soul was being carried to 
heaven. Then a terror came upon him, for he saw that certain 
venial sins still spotted his innocence. " Oh, Divine Majesty," 
he cried, " before entering Paradise let me first pass through the 
fires of purgatory, for I could not endure Thy awful holiness 
whilst these faults are unatoned for." Such lights are not un- 
known to devout spirits in this life, and they induce penitential 
exercises calculated to anticipate the fiery purgation of the 
future life. 

For advancement in the guilelessness of Christ, we must join 
to the penitential spirit the love of prayer. The Holy Spirit 
teaches: "He that loveth God shall obtain pardon for his sins 
by prayer, and shall refrain himself from them, and shall be heard 



TEPIDITY AND VENIAL SIN 



US 



in the prayer of days " (Ecclus. iii. 4). Prayer dissolves conduct 
into its elements, distinguishing motive from act; it elevates 
motives whilst apportioning acts according to the rules of pru- 
dence. As prayer brings us close to God, so it increases our hu- 
mility. The saints in the sublimest tranquillity of contempla- 
tion yet remembered their evil days; in their days of strength 
they prayed against the inevitable return of weaker moments. 
Nor were they despondent when God left them dry and parched. 
They used to forefend by specially fervent prayer the cunning 
approaches of the enemy, knowing that " he that plough eth not 
in the winter shall beg in the summer" (Prov. xx. 4). 

No form of prayer is so well calculated to cleanse our souls 
of every stain as that directed to Jesus Crucified, whether it be 
oral or mental. By a daily regimen of such prayer, evil tenden- 
cies are overwhelmed by graces and affections so attractive as 
to win us away from our weaknesses. 

The use of particular examen is of prime importance. Nor 
need one be over-anxious about its method. This devout exer- 
cise is made efficacious for perfection simply by earnest adver- 
tence, even for a very short time daily to a single fault, together 
with the thought ready at hand of the beauty of the opposite 
virtue. This generates zeal against a particular defect, a zeal so 
anxious as to be always on the watch, so stubborn as never to 
give up the fight. Happy the man to whom such a zeal is 
granted; particular examen is fed by a particular grace. When 
one besetting sin is reduced to its lowest degree of harmfulness, 
then other difficulties one by one assert themselves, and the soul 
by particular examen assails and subdues them. It is plain that 
the steady return of the mind to spiritual vigilance of so highly 
particularized a nature, guarantees a firm resolve to be perfect 
in all things. The flourishing state of the Lord's vineyard 
within us is traced to this spirit by the Holy Ghost : " Catch 
us the little foxes that destroy the vines, for our vineyard hath 
flourished" (Cant. ii. 15). 

If so much be said of the particular examen, what praise 



n6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



is sufficient for the Sacrament of Penance, joined to or leading 
on to Holy Communion. St. Francis de Sales, however, cautions 
us against confessing any venial sin that we are not seriously 
determined to give up. This is a safeguard against a routine 
spirit in approaching the sacrament. For the obligation of con- 
fession does not include venial sins, though its grace and for- 
giveness extend over them. The sacrament should be used only 
in this regard with a distinct view to reform. Thanks be to God, 
however, the most careless of us feels a special aversion for 
some petty fault or other, and that feeling, as we have already 
noticed, is inspired by the Holy Ghost. How easy and good 
it is then to make a confession fruitful of great results. We 
have only to emphasize that fault, to dwell upon it, to go into 
details about it, to dig underneath it, and cut away its foul roots 
of motive and of occasion. Sacramental confession thus used be- 
comes a divine particular examen. 

More than once we have insisted that the Sacrament of 
Confession requires for its best results humiliation of spirit. 
In the Lives of the Fathers of the Desert it is related that the 
devil once appeared to St. Macarius and insolently boasted: 
" I do all that you do. You fast, I never eat. You watch, I 
never sleep. There is only one thing which you do, that I do not, 
and cannot do." "What is that?" asked the hermit. "I do 
not humble myself, and I cannot." 

The high prerogative of a Christian is not to leap straight 
away from venial sinfulness and to run onward to holiness, but 
rather to hobble along in humility with occasional and brief, aye, 
very brief, intervals of very swift progress. Confession proves 
itself best when the penitent creeps away as much humbled as 
consoled. An extremely bad man came to confession to St. 
Anthony of Padua, but his shame was so great that he could 
hardly speak intelligently. " Go home, my son," said the Saint, 
" and write your sins out." He did so, and rilled a large sheet of 
paper with the record of a depraved life. Returning he handed 
the paper to St. Anthony, but it had become entirely blank, and 



TEPIDITY AND VENIAL SIN 



117 



was shining brilliantly. Thus does sorrow of the humiliating 
kind act upon sin whether great or little. 

Many a soul rises from tepidity into what is called the 
second conversion, which is equivalent to a second vocation, 
a new call to holiness, and the beginning of a new spiritual 
era. The earliest entrance into God's service is often defective, 
subject to blind impulses, spiritual excitement, youthful impres- 
sionableness, agitating waves of sensible devotion. There is 
sometimes lack of the deep-seated reasonable motives, sufficient 
for permanent devotedness, which really dwells in our under- 
lying life of purpose and of perception. As years pass on the 
romance of the earlier consecration evaporates, the work-a-day 
duties crowd in belittling the paramount claims of prayer, and 
the supreme need of seeking absolute blamelessness of conduct. 
Recall from this region abounding in venial faults, many and mis- 
erable, is frequently a more distinct crisis in the spiritual life 
than was the first vocation to perfection. Abraham's final voca- 
tion was more fateful than the first. The first was but the pass- 
ing away from his home and kindred ; the later and greater 
was the immolation of his son Isaac, and God said to him: 
" Now I know that thou fearest God, and hast not spared thy 
only-begotten son for My sake" (Gen. xxii. 12). 

Total dedication is shown in the giving up of certain relaxa- 
tions and companionships, the taming of a savage temper, re- 
nouncing the stubborn claim to certain occupations, silencing the 
fierce assertion of " rights " — all closely interwoven with a verit- 
able network of venial sins. These are suddenly or gradually 
revealed in their true light — the light of contrast with Jesus 
Crucified. The holy war is now begun again, with the calm 
courage of a veteran, the relentless, because deliberate, energy of 
one entirely familiar with his task, who has been taught the 
precious lessons of painful experience. 

Love is a hardy virtue ; instead of shunning painful ordeals 
it seeks and plans them. It is the foundation of our courage in 
our struggle with venial sins. The love of Jesus Christ is a never- 



n8 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



failing remedy for despondency in well doing. Constant ad- 
vertence to eternity is a never-failing source of valor in God's 
service. We must make up our minds to life-long struggle 
against these petty defilements known as venial sins. Though 
God grant us sensitiveness to spiritual cleanliness, refinement of 
taste in moral matters, a well-developed aversion for spiritual 
incongruities, we can never be totally free from faults. It is said 
of the truest servants of God: "A just man shall fall seven 
times, and shall rise again" (Prov. xxiv. 16). For the perfect 
and final cure of venial sins you must wait for the caustic salve 
of purgatory. The spiritual writers of former ages call them 
" daily sins." They are as sure to afflict us as night to creep 
upon day — they are inevitable. The only portion of our interior 
realm that they can be quite excluded from, is the realm of de- 
liberate willfulness. Venial sins are like the parasites on certain 
animals ; they are the vermin of the soul. St. Francis de Sales 
compares involuntary faults to mistletoe which grows on the tree 
and is rooted in the tree, yet is not like the tree, least of all part 
of the tree {Spirit, p. 159). The Lord uses our weakness to 
increase our strength, for humiliation, sometimes exceedingly 
bitter, follows venial sins even when they are not deliberate. 
And this humility crowds back our own glory to make place for 
God's. It is not to allow us to ruin ourselves even mcipiently, 
but rather to chasten our pride, that our heavenly Father lets 
us slip back into these defects. The Christian's ideal humiliation 
is the minimum of guilt followed by the maximum of shame: 
" Chastising, the Lord hath chastised me, but He hath not de- 
livered me over to death" (Ps. cxvii. 18). 



XIII. 



THE PASSION OF CHRIST. 



"My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Mark xiv. 34). 

"He fell upon His face, praying and saying: My Father if it be 
possible, let this chalice pass from Me. Nevertheless not as I will, but 
as Thou wilt" (Matt. xxvi. 39). 

" And His sweat became as drops of blood trickling down upon 
the ground" (Luke xxii. 44). 

The sacrifice of His life for us was the end and aim of 
our Savior's entire existence. He said : " I have a baptism, 
wherewith I am to be baptized: and how am I straitened until 
it be accomplished " (Luke xii. 50). It was, also, the whole 
purpose of His Father, for " God so loved the world as to give 
His Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him may 
not perish, but may have life everlasting" (John iii. 16). Let 
us enter into the Garden of Olives with our Redeemer, and study 
the beginnings of His atoning sacrifice. A disciple of His cannot 
do otherwise than join Him there to lament his sins, and make 
penitential self-sacrifice the guiding principle of his life. He 
bids us behold the agony He endured for our sakes, to take it as 
a pattern; to note His falling upon the ground in a spasm of 
interior pain ; His beseeching His Father to pity and relieve Him ; 
His humble acceptance of the Father's stern refusal; His sweat 
of blood. He asks us reproachfully : " Attend and see if there 
be any sorrow like unto My sorrow" (Lam. i. 12). Oh, Jesus, 
give me that grace, that instinct of love by means of which grief 
for my sins shall enter my soul, not by discussion of reasons 
and causes so much as by the sweet force of love. When I lived 

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120 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



in sin my joy was Thy sorrow, and now my sorrow is Thy joy. 
As I bend over thee in Thy agony Thy word comes true : " Thy 
sorrow shall be changed into joy" (John xvi. 20). 

One thing I own; it is my only self-created possession — 
my sinfulness. Jesus is jealous even of that; He disputes it 
with me, wrests it from me, and makes my sins His; and His 
Father ratifies the act : " Him Who knew no sin, He hath made 
sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in Him " 
(2 Cor. v. 21). Here in the Garden He assumes the ownership 
of our wickedness, not indeed of its guilt, of which He is in- 
capable, but of its shame and its punishment. What shall I not 
give Him in return? Many a one has achieved much merit for 
Paradise by cherishing a blind yearning for at least a share 
in the mental agony that Jesus here suffered for his sins. In 
all love's glorious history, here was its supreme act : Jesus 
the Son of God, having the joy of His divine union with the 
Father " set before Him," put it away, and " endured the cross " 
of our salvation (Heb. xii. 2). Love gives up all for the be- 
loved! When love would be sovereign it seeks the cross, it is 
enthroned on Calvary. The rendezvous for love's royal prog- 
ress is with Jesus in the Garden, and all its royal robes of honor 
are sufferings. Man has two good things at his disposal to give 
away, but all creatures are unworthy to have them; they ought 
to be given to God alone, the heart and the will to love and to 
suffer. For Christ has raised the value of sufferings so much 
that they are become more precious, not only than earthly goods, 
but even than the rarest favors of heaven (Father Thomas of 
Jesus). Certain it is, now, that suffering is inseparable from 
sanctity. 

" Rise up, let us go, behold he that will betray Me is at 
hand" (Mark xiv. 42). 

"And forthwith coming to Jesus, he [Judas] said, Hail, 

Rabbi. And he kissed Him Then they came up and laid 

hands on Jesus and held Him " (Matt. xxvi. 49, 50). 

"And they led Him away to Annas first" (John xviii. 13). 



THE PASSION OF CHRIST 



121 



" One of the servants standing by gave Jesus a blow " 
(John xviii. 22). 

" But they holding Jesus led Him to Caiphas the high priest 
who said to the scribes and ancients: What think you? But 
they answering said: He is guilty of death" (Matt. xxvi. 
57, 66). 

" Then did they spit in His face and buffeted Him, and 
others struck His face with the palms of their hands, saying: 
Prophesy unto us O Christ ; who is he that struck Thee ? " 
(Matt. xxvi. 67, 68.) 

" Then Peter began to curse and swear that he knew not the 
Man" (Matt. xxvi. 74). 

As a bad man hastens to his sin, so Jesus hastens to His 
death. " Rise, let us go." Judas awaits Him, His enemies 
await Him. Who would have thought that our Savior would 
favor the traitor's plan? Why not rise up and flee far away, far 
out of reach of danger? Or why not go forward to conquer 
and to scatter His enemies? To conquer is not to redeem, or 
rather to redeem is the only way to conquer men's hearts. How 
pitiful if His eager steps towards bonds and death shall leave 
me lagging behind in cowardice! O Jesus, when Thou keepest 
Thy appointment with Thy mortal foes, I shall be with Thee. 
A loving friend of Thine, St. Paul of the Cross, when vested and 
proceeding to the altar to offer Mass, used to murmur in his 
soul : " Behold the hour is at hand when the Son of Man shall be 
'betrayed into the hands of sinners" (Matt. xxvi. 45). If a 
Saint thus reproached himself, what should be my self -accusa- 
tion, when my soul rises in the morning and hastens to join 
Thee in Mass and Holy Communion ? 

When Jesus was presented to the Living God in the Temple, 
His Mother offered Him up for sinners with a generosity of 
which she alone was capable, as she had already given for our 
salvation the first drops of His Blood shed at His circumcision. 
Now He looks back to those beginnings. He takes them into 
His deepest soul, gathers together every pain suffered after- 



122 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



wards, looks forward to the torments and agonies before Him, 
and presents Himself in entire immolation to the poisonous kiss 
of Judas. How shall I meet my little miseries, I who claim to 
be a chosen one among the Redeemer's associates? 

Let us consider Jesus standing a fettered criminal in the 
court of the high priest; Holiness Itself subjected by His own 
act to the most malicious of mankind. What were His thoughts ? 
His hard sentence before that tribunal was to secure for us the 
grace to stand acquitted before the awful tribunal of His Father. 
By enduring the questioning of those perjured judges, He would 
win for us the power of answering happily the awful questionings 
of God on our day of reckoning. 

When these high-placed enemies of His had condemned our 
Savior to death, they turned Him over to the lower order of 
His enemies, lower in brutishness, but equal in power to torment 
Him. Behold Jesus among these wretches. Was ever a picture 
of hell better painted? Could demons torment a victim more 
cruelly than these human fiends tormented Christ through the 
remaining hours of the night before Good Friday? spitting in 
His face, blindfolding Him, buffeting Him, taunting Him with 
His ruin. To hinder such scenes in hell, Jesus submitted to 
them in the house of Caiphas. How perfect should be our con- 
fidence in His goodness. And O how sincere should be our 
sympathy with Him! 

" And the whole multitude of them rising up led Him to 
Pilate" (Luke xxiii. i). 

" And Pilate saith to them : I find no cause in Him " 
(John xviii. 38). 

" And he sent Him away to Herod, who set Him at 

nought and mocked Llim, and putting a white garment on Him, 
sent Him back to Pilate " (Luke xxiii. 7-1 1). 

" But the whole multitude together cried out : Away with 
this Man, and release unto us Barabbas " (Luke xxiii. 18). 

" They cried again saying: Crucify Him, crucify Him" 
(Luke xxiii. 21). 



THE PASSION OF CHRIST 



" Having scourged Jesus he delivered Him unto them to be 
crucified" (Matt, xxvii. 26). 

" Jesus therefore came forth bearing the crown of thorns 
and the purple garment. And Pilate saith to them: Behold 
the Man" (John xix. 5). 

" O Lord," exclaims Blessed Henry Suso, " Thou alone art 
the sufferer Who has never deserved to suffer, Thou and Thy 
sorrowful Mother; and yet Thy sufferings are beyond those of 
all sinners together." Whether He suffered in the nerves of 
His body or in the affections of His soul, He suffered in all 
things humiliation. Whether they lashed His body with whips 
or His soul with words, they humbled Him and degraded 
Him. As He is flung into Pilate's court, dragged back and 
forth between Pilate and Herod, flogged to the bone, spit upon, 
crowned with thorns, thrust aside that a murderer might escape, 
His soul appalled by the yells for His life's blood, it is always 
shame that He suffers, deeper and deeper shame. " I am a 
worm and no man, the reproach of men and the outcast of the 
people " (Ps. xxi. 7). 

" Behold the Man," cried Pilate, and His words were the 
doom of Jesus as King, as Messias, and as Teacher of the 
Jews. For my sake He gave up His good repute. For His sake 
must I not be ready to give up mine, or at least to give up 
men's praises and work for God in obscurity and without thanks ? 
The Ecce Homo teaches me that what is a disgrace to me as a 
man is a privilege to me as a Christian. And so it was the 
Apostles rejoiced " that they were accounted worthy to suffer 
reproach for the name of Jesus" (Acts v. 41). 

When a Christian has well studied the lessons of the Passion, 
he receives humiliations as a banker receives interest on a loan — 
he welcomes snubs, he stores up contradictions. These things 
of hurt are dear to his sense of justice. Holy acquisitiveness for 
wrongs and degradations is another name for humility. Proud 
reason protests: Are such injuries in simple reality a man's 
due? May one in plain good sense frame his mind that way? — 



124 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



eagerly desiring humiliations and courting their occasions. Such 
is the protest of the generation of worldlings. But all who hold 
the diploma of Christ's school of Calvary conform resolutely to 
His example, " Who being in the form of God, thought it not 
robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, taking the 
form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in 
habit found as a man. He humbled Himself becoming obedient 
unto death, even to the death of the Cross " (Phil. ii. 6-8). 

Look through it all from first to last: who is the one that 
said most for Jesus, that said anything for Him? The typical 
coward of the human race, Pontius Pilate. Jesus is disgraced 
even in His advocate. 

''And [they] led Him away to crucify Him" (Matt, xxvii. 31) . 

" And bearing His cross He went forth to that place which is 
called Calvary" (John xix. 17). 

" They laid hold of one Simon of Cyrene coming from the 
country ; and they laid the cross on him to carry after Jesus " 
(Luke xxiii. 26) . 

" Daughters of Jerusalem weep not over Me, but weep for 
yourselves and for j^our children" (Luke xxiii. 28). 

" And there were also two other malefactors led with him 
to be put to death " (Luke xxiii. 32). 

Why has the Christian instinct made the Sign of the Cross 
the beginning and end of every prayer and good work, unless it 
be that every prayer and good work is a form of self-immola- 
tion ? How often, alas, do the divinest symbols lose their signifi- 
cance by familiar use. 

" My yoke is sweet and My burden is light " (Matt. xi. 30), 
are the words of Truth itself. Every burden is truly sweet and 
light and happy if one but suffers it in His company. He said 
to all: " If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, 
and take up his cross daily and follow Me " (Luke ix. 23). 
How much is meant by this invitation of Christ ? It calls to vol- 
untary continuous self-denial for the love of God and the saving 
of souls. 



THE PASSION OF CHRIST 



Among the Cyrenian's privileges was a close view of the 
whole tragedy of the Crucifixion; for, the journey ended, must 
he not have tarried on Calvary and received the thanks of Jesus ? 
Could he possibly have resisted the fascination of an event 
that to this distant day enthralls all men? He saw it all, the 
stripping, the nailing, the lifting up of Jesus into the air, 
the three long hours and all that happened in them. Was not all 
this to him the novitiate of a crucified life? Let it be so to us. 

" They crucified Him " (John xix. 18). 

The cross is raised, and Jesus appears in the air swaying to 
and fro as His gibbet is being fixed in its place. The execu- 
tioners look at Him, studying whether or not the nails and 
cords will hold Him securely, and they exchange words together 
in a business-like way. But the conspirators greet Him with 
a loud and frantic shout of triumph, it is their shout of victory 
over Him. At the same moment from Mary, and her little group 
of faithful ones, come sighs and sobs of horror and of pity; 
they can hardly bear to look upon Him. But how much better 
do they now love Him in eternity from remembrance of that 
fearful sight. 

" And Jesus said : Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do" (Luke xxiii. 34). 

" And Jesus said to him: This day thou shalt be with Me in 
Paradise" (Luke xxiii. 43). 

" Woman behold thy son. After this He said to the dis- 
ciple: Behold thy Mother" (John xix. 26, 27). 

" My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matt, 
xxvii. 46.) 

" I thirst" (John xix. 28). 

" It is consummated " (John xix. 30). 

" Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit. And say- 
ing this He gave up the Ghost" (Luke xxiii. 46). 

" Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down 
his life for his friends" (John xv. 13). 

But, O Lord, Thy love is greater, for Thou didst die for 



126 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Thy enemies, enemies shouting out Thy death sentence : " Cru- 
cify Him ! " enemies insulting Thee in Thy last agony. 

It requires no small stock of humility to feel kindly toward? 
one who is our ill-wisher. Yet our Master says : " And if 
you love them that love you, what thanks are yours? for sinners 
also love those that love them" (Luke vi. 32). 

Christ was treated as a malefactor, and in return He loved 
His persecutors as if they were the best of all mankind. Why 
cannot we remember, when we are ill-treated, shoved aside, de- 
prived of our rights, slandered — why cannot we remember how 
Christ the Infinite God was treated. Many a Christian is in 
peril of damnation because he gives back hate for hate. Many 
a devout person is halted on the road to perfection by harboring 
aversions, indulging antipathies, and greedily joining in gossip. 
It was a maxim of St. Philip Neri, that the man who cannot en- 
dure the loss of honor is incapable of making progress in the 
spiritual life. 

St. Bernard says that if one has not learned to be quick in 
congratulating others in their good fortune and ready in condoling 
with them in their grief, he is not fit to be a devout Christian. 
It was said of St. Teresa that to be entirely sure of getting a 
favor from her, one must do her an injury. In this she but 
patterned on Christ Crucified. Tell us what prayer He ever 
uttered that equalled in force and death-like intensity His 
first words from the cross offered for His worst enemies, the 
worst men in the world : " Father, forgive them .for they know 
not what they do." It behooves us, then, to emulate His 
charity by praying most especially for the conversion of sinners 
of the more hopless sort. 

" And be kind one to another, merciful, forgiving one another 
even as God has forgiven you in Christ " (Eph. iv. 32). How 
sweet a manner of life is this ! How preferable, apart from any 
law, is this kindly way to the unforgiving way. And the Apostle 
continues, " Be ye followers of God as most dear children." 
To follow God is to be merciful, to come down even from heaven 



THE PASSION OF CHRIST 



127 



itself to share our neighbor's miseries ; to be held guilty for their 
sins and suffer the penalty for them ; to take those who are most 
alien to us and most offensive, and treat them kindly; to love 
them and to love them to the end ; to love one's bitterest enemies 
in imitation of God's Son Who died for His murderers, excusing 
them and praying for their pardon. This is what the imitation of 
God means, as the Apostle declares, to ''Walk in love as Christ 
also hath loved us and hath delivered Himself for us." 

His enemies bantered Jesus to come down from the cross. 
And we are tempted to wish that He had done so out of love 
for His Blessed Mother. Ludolph the Saxon tells of a 
certain novice whose mother came to him, and besought him to 
leave his monastery for her sake and to return home. He an- 
swered, " Christ did not descend from the cross on His Mother's 
account, so neither will I for thy sake leave the cross of penance." 

"With Christ I am nailed to the cross" (Gal. ii. 19). If I 
could say those words in all truth, I should bear the marks of 
the Crucified and be a saint. I can at least long for this privilege 
and pray for it; and when Providence offers me little crosses 
(at best but mimic crucifixions) I can accept them gladly. 
Surely I ought to know Christ and Him Crucified, as His Church 
and His Sacraments and His inspirations constantly recall Him 
to me; and, yes — also, because by mortal sin I have so often 
crucified the Son of God in my heart (Heb. vi. 6). 

St. Bonaventure says that if one does not sensibly feel 
compassion for our Lord's sufferings, he can at least have the 
merit of acknowledging that he has an heart of stone. May 
our Savior accept from us this poverty-stricken gift, too often 
all we have to give. 

A good undertaking is not at its worst, when all that we 
can do is to suffer and to pray for it. Our Redeemer was never 
so near victory as when He cried out with a loud voice, saying: 
" My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ? " Is your 
soul doubtful about bringing in a stray sheep of the Good 
Shepherd? Ask yourself this: Am I willing to suffer and 



128 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



to die for this conversion? No other inspiration of zeal can 
compare with that of desiring to suffer for a holy cause. 

" For to me to live is Christ" (Phil. i. 21). How glorious 
a saying: my very existence on earth is one with the wisdom 
and love of God as imparted by Christ. And the Apostle con- 
tinues, " to die is gain." When death comes at last, then shall 
Christ's life be the more abundantly given to me. O Jesus, all 
my merit is from Thy death ; that is the pattern of my living and 
my dying; from it I learn love's dearest lesson, the spirit of 
sacrifice. " O Jesus, how loveworthy is Thy death, since it is 
the sovereign effect of Thy love." 



XIV. 



CONFESSION, OR THE GOSPEL DOOR OF MERCY. 

" He breathed on them and He said to them : Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven them " 
(John xx. 22, 23). 

The all-bountiful God thus poured out upon His Church, 
and upon us, all of us and each of us, His spirit of forgiveness. 
This power of pardoning, so essentially His own, the Son of 
God placed in the hands of His priests, that as His Father sent 
Him to pardon, so His Holy Spirit should penetrate to the souls 
of His priests, and enrobe them in the same " ministry of recon- 
ciliation " (2 Cor. v. 18), whose benignant sentence He should 
approve in heaven. It is a peculiar blessing that they who 
exercise this power are men themselves, subject to sin, and in 
need of the same deliverance from it, so that they may deal with 
others the more pitifully. 

Jesus, the friend of sinners, made their power so ample that 
He did not reserve to Himself any, even the deadliest crime, 
nor set any bounds to the number of sins that shall be forgiven, 
nor make the frequency of our ungrateful relapses into sin a 
bar to further forgiveness. His immense love embraces and 
overlaps any possible wickedness, and with its divinity of com- 
passion cleanses our worst foulness whiter than snow, making 
good the prophet's word : " You shall be cleansed from all your 

filthiness and I will give you a new heart, and create a 

new spirit within you" (Ezech. xxxvi. 25, 26). 

The virtue of faith is, by this sacrament, made more and 
more surely the root and foundation of all my justice (Con. 
Trid., sess. vi., cap. viii.). Herein, too, is a comfort raised above 

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THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



all human comfort; for in the tribunals of earth the avowal of 
guilt universally brings ignominy upon the criminal, while in this 
heavenly court it confers upon him perpetual nobility. The love 
of God also grows rich within us in this sacrament, changing 
the horrible sorrow of despair into the affectionate sorrow of 
friendship, so welcome to God, so soothing to the pardoned 
culprit. In confession the heroic virtue of fortitude strengthens, 
and the shivering caitiff is changed into the bold champion of 
Christ, having already won that dearest of all victories, the vic- 
tory of self. 

Besides this, Jesus has in this sacrament respected free- 
dom's fairest prerogatives. For quite willingly must the sinner 
drag himself before Christ's deputy ; and there accuse himself ; 
and there bear witness against himself in truth's holiest shrine; 
he judges, he condemns himself ; and finally he resolutely exe- 
cutes the sentence upon himself. 

In no way, furthermore, is humility so well practised. For 
as our Redeemer, " having joy set before Him, endured the 
cross" (Heb. xii. 2), which shamed Him with our sins; so 
now do I with shame and confusion of face, yet courageously, 
take my place beside Him. 

Nor does all this breathing of the Holy Ghost benefit hard 
sinners alone. It goes on with us after we enter upon a life of 
perfection, when mortal sin, and therefore its pardon in confes- 
sion is practically out of the question. More and yet more 
the sacrament washes us from our former stains of iniquity, and 
cleanses us brighter and brighter from our sins (Ps. L 4), quiet- 
ing misgivings, deepening hope, opening in our spirit's depths 
richer and richer fountains of gratitude. Renewal of con- 
fession is, to devout souls, a perennial return of the tide of the 
divine ocean of mercy washing away all anxieties about the past, 
all dread about the future. Let us go, therefore, with joyful 
confidence to the "throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, 
and find grace in seasonable aid " (Heb. iv. 16). Little wonder, 
then, that this sacrament is religion's plain test of validity. Say 



CONFESSION 



I3i 



of any man that he is so bad that he cannot go to confession, 
and you tell of a state of awful confusion of soul. 

This sacrament was instituted by our Lord on the night of 
the Resurrection Day. He called His Father to witness it, 
and He breathed His Holy Spirit upon us to sanctify it. As 
between man and God it is a marvelous sign of reconciliation,, 
as between man and man, it is, next to baptism, easily the most 
beneficial of communications. Other sacraments indeed bind us 
to men holily, as in marriage by the highest social union, as in 
Holy Orders by apostolic union. But in confession the bond 
is of perfect brotherly love; in the exchange of sin for pardon, 
a holy friendship is cemented. Poor sinner as I am I yet fur- 
nish the matter of this sacrament, nay I am myself the matter, 
my thoughts, words, looks, posture, being gladly received by Jesus 
Christ as the reason for my pardon. Confession is a divine 
" chapter of faults," infinitely more wide reaching and deep 
searching than other such exercises of humility. 

On this treacherous earth of ours, confession is the one 
inviolable shrine of truth telling. The foulest crimes are herein 
avowed under no compulsion, but that of the gentle stress of 
conscience ; there are many perjured lawsuits, but few false con- 
fessions. The confessional is the one place in all this world 
where hard admonition is eagerly sought and obediently accepted. 
This sacrament is the universal leveller: the Pope kneels and 
confesses, and so does the altar boy; the bishop no less than 
the priest ; the guileless maiden and the filthy strumpet ; the mil- 
lionaire and the bootblack: " For there is no distinction. For 
all have sinned, and do need the glory of God " (Rom. ii. 22, 23), 
Whose brightness is reflected in sacramental absolution. 

The benefit of this sacrament as a means of guidance in 
spiritual affairs is exceedingly great. The Holy Spirit says: 
" I wisdom dwell in counsel, and am present in learned thoughts " 
(Prov. viii. 12). The gift of counsel is imparted in confession 
as a house is built for a dwelling. In all the greater affairs of 
life, spiritual guidance is of critical necessity. Who but a fool 



i32 thi sp:r:~lal l. 



ally while 
ey." Obe- 
eras, and 
i pier." is 



crteut clouded bv seut-uuterest. vounr/- 



14). Refy, 
occasiona ll y 



30 



but he that is ise hearkeneth unto counsels " (ProT. xii. 15). 
A particularly subtle species c: this form of pride is chang- 
; — ~ ronfesscrs ever and ever arauo. until one is found complais- 
ant enough to be cver-orersnaded : Complaisant, or indolent, 
cr irexoerien-rei. :r sentimental, or Tisionary confessors are 
resocnsille for half the evils :f pious people's lives, arid for many 
:f the uoisereE :f religious rtmiuuuities. And prudent con- 
fess: rs share the meri: of all the holiness of their penitents. 
1 ne must I earn steadv ora trite free'.v tt co>eu his mind to his 
iOimrjL. rather. T:r if 0 sarrnlous penitent is a nuisance to 
his rcufesstr. a reticent one is a menace to himself, especially 

The entire ourratie - f lies in the treadiur batk and forth 



::::Fzs::::r 




134 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



to be obtained, yet we meet with many who make this sacra- 
ment and communion itself subsidiary to their favorite devo- 
tions, subsidiary and secondary. This is like a cook who would 
spend more time and care on the sauce than on the substance of 
the food prepared. 

Every virtue we possess should be made use of in preparing 
for confession. Never does an act of faith serve a better pur- 
pose than when it recalls our Lord's institution of this sacra- 
ment, when it recites again His marvelous words, and gives 
heart and soul to the firmest conviction that all mortal sins 
after baptism are remitted by the Sacrament of Penance and 
by it alone. 

Nor can the blessed virtue of hope find wider scope for its 
comforting influence than before and during confession. My 
soul proclaims to God and His angels that in the priest's abso- 
lution following my sorrow for my sins, and in my truthfulness 
in manifesting them, rest my sole hope of pardon. In that 
I rest secure. The dark unbroken wall of hell surrounds me 
but for this sacrament, which a holy writer, Father Hecker, 
calls the " Gospel Door of Mercy." 

But above all other preparatory exercises is that of love, 
which places me with my beloved Mother Mary at the foot of 
the cross. Penance is by excellence the sacrament of the cross 
and the precious Blood of Jesus Christ. May His sorrowful 
Mother obtain for me a painfully intense grief for having been 
one of those of whom the weeping Apostle speaks : " They are 
enemies of the cross of Christ" (Phil. iii. 18). May the com- 
panion of the sorrowful Mother, the great penitent Magdalen, 
obtain for me that Jesus shall say over me, as He said over her : 
" Many sins are forgiven her because she hath loved much " 
(Luke vii. 47). Then faith, hope, and love must be fused into 
contrition, each of these virtues deepening, stimulating, or en- 
lightening my sorrow. A fourfold test of my heart's contrition 
is provided me by the inspired writer : " For I am ready for 
scourges, and my sorrow is continually before me. For I will 



CONFESSION 



135 



declare my iniquity, and I will think for my sin" (Ps. xxxvii. 
18, 19). First, I am ready for scourges, and all penitential exer- 
cises within my power shall be my choice. Second, my sorrow is 
a haunting, abiding sorrow. Third, my confession shall be a 
full and true declaration to Thy priest of what I am and what 
I have been in Thy sight. And fourth, I will think of my sins in 
bitterness of spirit, and with an iron purpose of atonement. 
Then, and only then, dare I turn to receive Thy joyful welcome. 

Whatever garment of joy we wear in this life, we must al- 
ways pin upon its sleeve some badge of mourning for our sinful 
doings. True, always, this is especially true on the day of our 
confession. This is what the blessed man Job means when he 
says with fierce earnestness : " I have sewed sackcloth upon my 
skin" (Job xvi. 16). It is one thing to wear sackcloth; quite 
another thing to pass the needle through it, and stitch by stitch 
actually to sew it to the skin of our bodies. Such, according 
to Job, is the difference between contrition fixed and true in its 
pain, and contrition put on or off for the occasion. " A three- 
fold cord is not easily broken" (Eccles. iv. 12), says the Sage. 
Now the triple cord of sacramental sorrow has one strand of 
sincerity; another of divinity, or of the realization of the 
sovereign majesty we have outraged; and still another of reso- 
lute purpose to do penance. 

When this frame of mind is reached, the examination of con- 
science will take us no long time, for like the sea at the sound 
of artillery, memory's tomb gives up its dead at the loud call of 
truth and justice. If I have hope of perfection I should single 
out and tell the faults that most hinder love; that have most 
hurt charity to my brethren either directly or by bad example; 
that are my besetting weaknesses; those that have longest re- 
sisted my particular examens.* 

The uses of confession against temptations are very great 

*For a perfect statement of method and motives in the confessions 
of those desiring to lead a devout life, we recommend the luminous chapter 
" On Holy Confession," in St. Francis de Sales' Introduction to a Devout Life. 



136 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



indeed, for though the sacrament has for its primary object the 
forgiving of sins, its overflowing measure is the preventing of 
sins for the future. St. Francis de Sales says : " The sovereign 
remedy against all temptations, great or small, is to lay open 
your heart, and communicate its suggestions, feelings and affec- 
tions to your director, for you must observe that the first con- 
dition that the enemy of salvation makes with a soul which he 
desires to seduce is to keep silence " {Introduction to a Devout 
Life,'\v., 8)* 

Scruples, as is well known, are cured by the sacramental 
obedience of confession — and in no other way, taking cases 
generally. The first step towards this blessed deliverance is to 
postpone all debate about them till confession, and the second is 
(alas too often exceedingly difficult) to obey one's confessor 
about receiving communion with the unreasoning submissiveness 
of a sick child. The worst of this plague of timid souls is the 
constant tendency to discuss and decide doubts of conscience 
for oneself, and outside the tribunal of penance. This, to use a 
homely comparison, is like scratching a mosquito bite, it always 
increases the pain, and sometimes produces an ulcer. If one 
will but suffer the sting for half an hour, the little atom of 
poison is then dissolved. So if one will but suffer the strain 
of a doubt courageously, and wholly without interior question 
or answer, the trouble-mindedness will presently disappear. At 
any rate brave the torture for penance's sake until confession 
day comes round, thus practising a very high order of obedience 
to one's confessor. 

A certain friend of St. Francis de Sales was full of scruples, 

mistrusting whether God loved him or not. The Saint wrote 

to him : " Do not try to discover whether or not your heart is 

pleasing to God. I forbid you to do it. But you must certainly 

*This applies with supreme emphasis to temptations against chastity, and 
also to those against faith ; these can succeed only by using subterranean 
methods. Satan is the leader of those works in the dark, of whom our 
Savior speaks : " Everyone that doth evil hateth the light and Cometh not 
to the light, that his works may not be reproved " (John iii. 20). 



CONFESSION 



137 



try to make sure that His Heart is pleasing to you, Now if you 
but meditate on His Heart, it cannot possibly be otherwise than 
pleasing to you, so sweet is it; so gentle, so condescending, so 
loving towards all of His poor creatures, who do but acknowledge 
their wretchedness ; so gracious to the unhappy, so good to the 
penitent" (Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, p. 21). 

Introspection is the bane of nervous Christians, who search 
the Jerusalem of their souls with the lamp of self-suspicion. A 
scrupulous person is one addicted to unreasonable self-accusa- 
tion. Whosoever is reasonably eager to find the love of Christ 
in his soul, is a safe and sane Christian. And love is the easiest 
thing in the world to find, the plainest of mental states. Cannot 
I tell whether or not I am fond of anybody? — especially of so 
great a benefactor as my Redeemer? Do I not know which 
side I train with in the battle of life — Satan's or Christ's? 
Cannot I tell whether or not I am glad that Jesus Christ is God ? 
That He has a divine purpose of pardoning me, and all who 
wish to be pardoned? These interior sentiments form singly 
and together what is called the " love of complaisance " or 
of good pleasure. They are inspirations of grace. As to pos- 
sessing the " love of benevolence " — another theological term, 
meaning well-wishing — cannot I know whether or not I am glad 
God has so many loving friends in heaven and on earth? Is it 
not easy to discover whether or not I wish to increase the 
number? If you say that hard sinners may claim all this, I an- 
swer no, unless they lie about it. Furthermore the love of Christ 
which makes the thought of Him pleasant to us, and that which 
makes zeal for His glory an interior exhilaration, has an outward 
accompaniment which is as plain as the inward condition. Our 
Savior Himself tells us of it : " He that hath My commandments 
and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me " (John xiv. 21). 

For thanksgiving after confession, let us remember how well 
pleased our Redeemer was with the leprous Samaritan who, find- 
ing himself cured while on the way to show himself to the 
priest, immediately ran back and with a loud voice thanked his 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Benefactor (Luke xvii. 15, 16). There were nine other bene- 
ficiaries who gave no thanks. We believe that the same pro- 
portion still exists, between the thankful and the unthankful 
penitents cured of the leprosy of mortal sin, or of the itch of 
venial sin in the Sacrament of Confession. Let us bear in mind 
that absolution means pardon of sins and eternal salvation, per- 
fect renewal of divine friendship, perpetual and efficacious grace 
for amendment; strength against temptations; and the injection 
into our spirit of the new and clean blood of hope for final per- 
severance. None of us should be done with this sacrament until 
he has spent some good long minutes in reading or reciting 
prayers of gratitude to the Good Shepherd, such as the words of 
the penitent king of Israel : " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let 

all that is within me, bless His holy name Who forgiveth 

all thy iniquities ; Who healeth all thy diseases. Who redeemeth 
thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with mercy and 

compassion As far as the east is from the west, so far 

hath He removed our iniquities from us" (Ps. cii. 1-12). Love 
alone can enable us to comprehend the greatness of the favor 
done us in the Sacrament of Penance, and inspire us with ade- 
quate thank offerings. 



XV. 



THE MERCY OF GOD. 

Let nothing disturb thee, 
Nothing affright thee ; 
All things are passing; 
God never changeth ; 
Patient endurance 
Attaineth to all things; 
Who God possesseth 
In nothing is wanting; 
Alone God sufficeth. 

How tranquil an air breathes into our souls from these 
maxims of St. Teresa, found after her death in her own hand- 
writing, placed as a marker in her breviary. They are the buoy- 
ant, courageous utterance of a spirit to whom the words " noth- 
ing " and " everything " meant respectively creatures and God. 

Hope is a divine virtue, one of " these three ; but the great- 
est of these is charity" (i Cor. xiii. 13). Love is thus supreme. 
As warmth is the essential quality of fire, so faith is love's fire- 
light, and hope is the fuel for love's flame. 

The old-time Catholic poet, Richard Crashaw, calls hope 
" Queen regent in young love's minority." W e may add that 
when love is full grown and becomes queen regnant, hope is 
major domo in her royal palace. Yet many a Christian prefers 
humility to hope, a moral virtue to a divine one, favoring pious 
timidity at the expense of trustfulness towards God. A devout 
scare has its uses, but these must fall short of religious panic. 
Beware of so much as piously mouthing such expressions as, 
"O I fear I shall never be saved." What is the one dread 
mystery of religion? Predestination — let us tremblingly own it. 
But how does God command us to solve it? By trusting Him, 
trusting Him blindly, trusting Him against appearances. Much 

(i39) 



140 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



of our spirituality must consist in changing the virtue of love into 
that of hope. 

It is a comfort to feel that I owe my salvation to Christ alone, 
and that by an act of mercy entirely absolute, His pardon is 
pure clemency. Any other spiritual comfort is like a blossom 
in a vase, sure to wither and die, and its seed to die with it. 
Trust that is rooted in God is a blossom on the living tree of 
hope, that only changes its bright leaves for the ripened seed of 
eternal life. It was so on the tree of the cross, when Jesus 
Crucified dignified this virtue of hope by His farewell utterance : 
"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit" (Luke xxiii. 
46). This was His answer to the still lingering terrors of the 
Garden and the still echoing taunts of its demons there, as well 
as the mocking voices of the rabble upon Calvary. 

Do my past sins cast me down? Yet nothing can give me 
greater confidence of dying happily (O, what a joy!) than the 
recollection of all that God has patiently borne from me. His 
purpose has always been and is now a happy death for me. 
The maxim, " look to the end," may be unheeded by me, never 
by Him; God, Who is the beginning, always looks to the end. 
He will make a complete work of mercy in my case. Can I 
doubt that this frame of mind is pleasing to Him? 

Who is that God Who withers up my soul with fright? — 
where is He, what is He doing? Taking God as universally 
present, He is the Spirit in every man's soul pleading for him 
"with unspeakable groanings " (Rom. viii. 26). He is God the 
Son on every altar in Christendom, bestowing even Himself 
without reserve indiscriminately upon the least and the most 
worthy. He is the infinitely pitiful Father, breathing out His 
pardoning love in the tribunal of mercy, the confessional. Where 
is the God Who threatens ? He is at distant Sinai. And where 
is the God Who affectionately invites? He is everywhere; and 
He is our God. 

Theologians teach the difference between the certainty of 
faith and that of hope. The certainty of faith is seated mainly 



THE MERCY OF GOD 



in the intelligence, being a divine light by which one is able 
to exclude doubt or question concerning the truths of religion; 
and the inspiring motive is God's truthfulness in revealing 
Christ's doctrine. But the solidity of hope is fixed mainly in the 
will, a grace by which one excludes fear of damnation, a trust- 
fulness whose motive is God's purpose and promise and power 
to save us. As faith's certainty is called infallible, infallibilitas, 
so hope's firmness is said to be incapable of disappointment, in- 
frustrabilitas. Neither is above the reach of temptation; but 
it is always in our power to hold fast to our serenity of divine 
light by the grace of faith, and sweetness of trust in God by 
the grace of hope. " For when He granteth peace, who is there 
that can condemn?" (Job xxxiv. 29.) God has set a limit to 
justice and condemnation, none to mercy. I am forgiven my 
sins by God, and He is the court of last resort. From that 
decree there is no appeal against me, none possible or conceivable. 
There never shall be a new trial of my dreadful case, never for 
all eternity. I am forgiven now and forever more. " The_ Lord 
is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? " — thus for my 
faith ; " The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I 
be afraid?" (Ps. xxvi. 1) — thus for my hope. 

God forgives our sins and forgets them. But this is not 
all: He forgets His past favors to us. He begins over again 
as if He had heretofore done nothing. In our espousals with 
His Spirit the honeymoon is perpetual. Every day of His 
friendship is like the first. God is willing to forego a thousand 
threatenings of justice, but He has never been known to break a 
single promise of love. " The Lord is faithful in all His words, 
and holy in all His works. The Lord lifteth up all that fall, 
and setteth up all that are cast down. The eyes of all hope in 
Thee, O Lord" (Ps. cxliv. 13-15). 

God has outlined this divine virtue in granting us a naturally 
hopeful temperament. Among the kinds of men we know, none 
is more lovely than he who has a particularly hopeful character. 
He looks on the bright side — what side but that is God's side. 



142 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



As we hear that the darkest cloud has its silver lining, so must 
we say that God always sees that side, for He is enthroned be- 
yond the clouds. " Heaven's door is iron on our side and golden 
on God's side," says Wiseman by one of his characters in 
Fabiola. 

In religious activities the busy, pushing man is the hopeful 
man; and he is the thriving man. He alone has daring plans 
for God's cause. Difficulties do not daunt him, because his tem- 
perament and his grace make sacrifices easy. A supine soul has 
no place in a saint's following. Cowardice never takes counsel of 
an energetic friend — it seeks out a minimizing confidant for its 
perplexities and a temporizing negotiator for its scruples. In- 
stead of abounding in plans it overflows with excuses. Reasons 
for not acting are abundant in proportion to the vacancy of hope- 
fulness. A safe man, such a one is sometimes called — safe he 
is because he keeps at a safe distance from the firing line. He 
can boast that he has never been knocked down, for he is always 
lying flat on the ground. 

One says of an evil that called for remedying, " I was afraid 
to make matters worse, and so I quietly withdrew." Another 
kind of a man says, " I had little hope, to be sure, but I could not 
help doing something — and I did my best." God does not always 
give a victory to such a one, but he always comforts his con- 
science with inner approval. 

" Among all the virtues, hope is distinguished for activity 
and energy," says Father Chaignon. Indolence murmurs: 
" What's the use, success is impossible," with a secret dread of 
labor and sacrifices and conflicts. Hope says : " Let us fight 
'with cheerfulness the battle of Israel'" (i Mac. iii. 2). The 
spirit of a valiant disciple is content with a postponed success: 
" And in doing good let us not fail, for in due time we shall reap, 
not failing" (Gal. vi. 9) — in due time; later on; in the person 
of our successors, who shall reap where we have sown ; in God's 
chosen time. Is there any better time? His be the choice of 
time, as His has been the choice of me to do the work, and the 



THE MERCY OE GOD 



143 



choice of the work, itself. It is related of Blessed Joan of Arc, 
that when the English armies had overrun nearly all France, and 
her king, nobles and people were in dark despair, they enlarged 
to her upon the great power of the enemy and his vast numbers. 
But she calmly replied : " If there were a hundred thousand 
more Goddams (as the English were called by the French) 
among us, they should not have this country." 

For hopefulness is a workaday virtue. A Christian should 
undertake his Master's work in a bold, confident spirit, and persist 
in it resolutely. When St. Paul of the Cross had received re- 
peated inspirations from God to establish the Order of Pas- 
sionists, he opened his whole mind to his bishop and obtained his 
approval. Then with his encouragement he journeyed on foot 
to Rome to beg the Pope's blessing on his undertaking. But 
the chamberlain in attendance turned him away. He looked 
scornfully at the meek figure, clad in a curious and very poor 
habit, without a single friend to introduce him, muttering some- 
thing about founding a new religious order. As he turned him 
off he cried out after him : " How many tramps do you sup- 
pose want to see the Pope every day ? " Paul went his way, 
but he came again. He never faltered, no, not for a moment, 
during long years filled with various such misadventures. His 
final success was due as much to his steadfast trust as to his 
divine inspirations. 

Contradictions to imprudent undertakings, or untimely ones, 
above all to those which lack true Catholic flavor, are a natural 
sign of God's disapproval. But it is a curious thing, yet spirit- 
ual writers agree upon it, that to a work of God all timely and 
beneficent, contradictions are a mark of divine favor — more, 
they are a pledge of final success. " Believest thou this ? " 
Therefore, " Son, when thou comest to the service of God, 
stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation " 
(Ecclus. ii. 1). 

How shall we destroy the religion of Christ? asked its ene- 
mies, after they had put St. Stephen to death. Scatter His 



144 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Apostles, so that they may wander in exile, hindered from work- 
ing in unison, their organization destroyed. How shall we build 
up the religion of Christ ? it was asked in the counsels of heaven. 
Scatter His Apostles, develop their organization by distributing 
its leaders, show its universality. One or two are enough for the 
Jewish nation, let the others preach the Gospel to every creature, 
offer His all-clean oblation in every country, everywhere from the 
rising to the setting sun; for lo, Christ is with them in all lands 
and to all ages. How singular the identity of means and diver- 
sity of aim among the enemies and friends of God's Church. 
How futile to consider means and ends according to man's view, 
when there is question of a work of God. 

Did you ever hear of a really important work of God which 
did not cost many tears, great trials, and long protracted waiting? 
" Great designs are not accomplished save by means of patience 
and the lapse of time. Things which grow in one day, decay in 
another " {Letters of St. Francis de Sales to Persons in Religion, 
Mackey Edition, VI.). This rule of Providence, so invariable 
and so trying, is established to purify motives, to demonstrate 
that God is the author of the work, to secure a better time, place, 
and other advantages later on, and to enhance the merit of the 
servants of God who undertake His cause. Failure on the part 
of an unhopeful temperament produces gloomy disappointment 
and sourness of manner ; but a hopeful temperament is stung by 
defeat to undertake an immediate counterstroke with renewed 
courage and dearly-bought increase of prudence. 

It has been well said that a true Christian should have but 
one fear — lest he should not hope enough. The vice which more 
directly antagonizes hope is despair, but presumption uses and 
abuses it. The virtue that is made to hurt hope is the pru- 
dence degenerated into cowardice which conscripts humility into 
its craven service. Discouragement apes humility; and timidity, 
like a man without appetite who boasts of his Lenten fast, 
poses as discretion. 

If timid men would but refuse promotion and reject praise 



THE MERCY OF GOD 



145 



in religious organizations, they would at least have the merit of 
consistency. But how many skulkers have claimed and got ad- 
vancement because they " never got into trouble " — " ten years' 
service without a complaint against me." Yes, but what good 
have you done? How different the meekness of an aggressive 
nature ! Who was the invincible leader of God's broken-spirited 
people? " Moses was a man exceeding meek, above all men that 
dwelt upon earth" (Num. xii. 3). 

A grievous affliction is sadness, and yet it may merit hearty 
condemnation in a servant of God. The Fathers of the Desert 
named sadness as the eighth capital sin, for it ranks high as a 
muddler of clear counsel in divine affairs, and a crippler of 
strenuous endeavor. In moments of depression abandon your- 
self absolutely to the will of God, and with every trust in His 
loving care, " drink the chalice of the Lord with your eyes 
shut," to use an expression of St. Paul of the Cross, paraphras- 
ing the stalwart utterance of the Psalmist: "I will take the 
chalice of salvation, and I will call upon the Name of the Lord " 
(Ps. cxv. 13). It may be the nectar of victory that I shall quaff, 
it may be the wormwood of defeat — it is always the chalice of 
the Lord's salvation if I am doing His work. 

It was said of the Dominican artist, Fra Angelico, that 
" he put a bit of paradise into everything he painted." He dealt 
with dead things and gave them undying life. I am called to 
divine works, I study and labor and practice holy sympathy for 
my neighbor ; prayer and sacraments I offer to God, things already 
alive with heaven's blissfulness. Shall I not permit them to pour 
the paradise of God into my soul ? Shall I block the way of heav- 
enly hope with the effigy of prudence and the old clothes of humil- 
ity ? Of St. Catherine of Siena her biographer says, that even as a 
little child, " as soon as anyone conversed with her, sadness was 
dispelled from his heart." 

An atrocious sinner repents and is forgiven — and then re- 
lapses ; and this act of feebleness and wickedness is repeated 
many times over. But what then? Perhaps he at last repents 



146 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



finally and forever. If so, it is because he did not lose hope, the 
last anchor of the storm-beaten soul. Consider this: God is 
pleased and men are edified, when an abominable recedive does 
not abandon hope in his worst state. What then should be the 
hope cf a man who, though hard pressed by temptation, is yet 
never mortally overcome in a conflict of many glorious years' 
duration. 

If one feels drawn by the Holy Spirit to make an advance 
on his present spiritual state — all in the ordinary line of his 
calling — and yet is too feeble to obey this inward impulse, let 
him net be so much discouraged as humiliated. Self-contempt 
is a valuable spiritual asset. And then let him say: I will go 
forward sooner or later — shame on me for not doing it now. 
No bankruptcy is so lamentable as loss of heart. God may 
leave us helpless to act. He never leaves us empty of good-will 
to resolve to act in the future. What confounds my pride should 
establish my humility. We believe that no sound is more unwel- 
come to the demon than the alleluia of hope, sung by a soul 
struggling valiantly with the ignoble fault of procrastination. 

" The freshness of a living hope in God," says St. John of 
the Cross, " inspires the soul with such energy and resolution, 
with such aspiration after the things of eternal life, that all this 
world seems to it — as indeed it is — in comparison with what it 
hopes for, dry, withered, dead, and worthless" {Obscure Night, 
Book II., ch. xxi.). Such a soul cannot be absorbed in worldly 
things, its sole anxiety is about God. " My eyes are ever to- 
wards God" (Ps. xxiv. 15). Our Savior's bitter reproach to 
Peter was merited by' his relying on human means to place his 
Master on His throne of salvation : " Jesus said to Peter : Get 
thee behind Me, Satan, thou art a scandal unto Me, because thou 
savorest not of the things that are of God, but of the things 
that are of men" (Matt. xvi. 23). Now the foremost of the 
men on whom Peter foolishly relied was his own raw, headlong, 
blundering self. Is it otherwise with any of us, who dreams of 
spiritual gains being anything else than divine favors? 



THE MERCY OF GOD 



147 



Men read volumes and volumes of travels in strange coun- 
tries where they never expect to go. Why have they so little 
interest in the realm of eternal joy, the kingdom of Christ be- 
yond the skies, whither they one and all trust to go and to live 
forever? It is because they do not cultivate the virtue of hope, 
that " hope that was laid up for them in heaven " (Col. i. 5), and 
which projects the joys of present love into the endless years 
of future love. O God of eternal youth, Thou givest to Thy 
children a share in Thy own attributes of perpetual peace: 
"I have said: ye are gods, and sons of the Most High" (Ps. 
Ixxxi. 6). Mayst Thou grant me, with the jubilant energy of 
youth, to grapple with the tasks Thy providence lays upon me. 
" For which cause we faint not ; for though our outward man is 
corrupted, the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. iv. 
16) — renewed by hope. 

Indeed the true Christian never grows old. No matter how 
sadly decayed his bodily force, his spiritual part is endowed with 
a divine youthfulness, courage to begin any good work, fortitude 
to recover quickly from any failure — the glorious hopefulness of 
his Master in his soul and in his conduct, expressed by the 
Psalmist in that renowned war cry of holy progress: " I have 
said, now have I begun : this is the change of the right hand of 
the Most High" (Ps. lxxvi. 11). 

A dreamer and a visionary is nicknamed a " rainbow 
chaser." But in a real sense every Christian must be that, or 
the clouds of despondency will darken his whole life. I must 
look upwards with the divine instinct of holy hope, searching the 
misty future for God's sign manual on the sky, His covenant that 
He " will no more destroy every living creature." " I will set 
my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a covenant between Me and 
between the earth. And when I shall cover the sky with clouds, 
My bow shall appear in the clouds, and I will remember My 
covenant with you " (Gen. ix. 13-15). 



XVI. 



A MEDITATION ON THE BLESSED EUCHARIST. 

"I am the living bread which came down from heaven" (John vi. 41). 
"He filled them with the bread of heaven" (Ps. civ. 40). 

When Jesus forecast His ascension into heaven, He asked 
Himself what relations He should then establish with the world 
in which He had lived. His answer is the Eucharist, the Real 
Presence, the Mass, and Holy Communion. This relation is His 
perpetual presence with us, and it is well nigh a universal 
presence, it is sacrificial, it is communicative of the Humanity 
and Divinity of Jesus Christ. 

Now, how, as an actual fact, am I related to it ? Protestants 
say that His presence is figurative — a downright heresy. But, 
alas, do I not make it figurative to myself? I fear that that 
is a downright fact. Is His presence a Real Presence to me, 
the actual, literal Christ? In my moments of extraordinary 
fervor, yes. At other times it is a presence symbolical of God's 
goodness to me, rather than generative of God's holiness within 
me. What an invention of love is the Eucharist, love served 
by power, both all divine. A literal, a universal presence, so 
as to leave out no little hamlet in the country, no darksome alley 
in the town ; made personal to anyone of us, and at any lime we 
like, by Holy Communion. And, O my God, what is my re- 
turn? Simply no return beyond law keeping. 

To know the Incarnation, really to understand it, would be 
the beatific vision, the mind absorbed in the most intimate rela- 
tion of man with God : " Now this is eternal life, that they may 
know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou 
hast sent " (John xvii. 3). The Eucharist is the supreme dogma 

(148) 



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149 



for that reason. It is the Incarnation brought home to both 
Church and Christian, and that most intimately : " As the living 
Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father ; so he that eateth 
Me, the same also shall live by Me" (John vi. 58). Here God 
is granted to everyone of us by infinite power, guided with 
infinite wisdom, for purposes of infinite love. If religion is 
God and man related in love, O what a complete religion is 
the Eucharist, what a relation of love! 

The Real Presence is the reality of all divine union. St. 
Alphonsus says : " What can God refuse me, when He makes 
Himself mine, heart to heart ? " Who can be faint-hearted in 
the work of salvation, when his heart is made one with the 
mighty Heart of Jesus Christ. St. John in writing to a beloved 
friend, postpones his dearer confidences till he can " speak face 
to face" (2 John i. 12). One glance of love, one little word of 
friendship, is worth a thousand pen and ink utterances. What 
then of being heart to heart with the Son of God — love and love 
placed in a miraculously close exchange of greetings and of vows? 
Just as we often say that our feelings are too deep for utter- 
ance, and our thoughts beyond the power of words to express, 
so may we also affirm that we may win Christ's love adequately 
only by the naked manifestation of our soul's loyalty, and best 
enjoy it by the mystical revelations of His Heart's deepest affec- 
tions in Holy Communion. In Holy Communion our Lord, too, 
invites us to banquet in His company, calling us with a silent 
loving voice, thrilling us with His own affectionateness. What 
can be more glorious than this perfect accessibility of Jesus? 
O Jesus, Thou almighty Son of the living God, what couldst 
Thou do more for us? What couldst Thou do more? 

To borrow a thought of St. Clement of Alexandria. If you 
study under a physician, you become a physician ; working under 
a carpenter, you become a carpenter, and so of holding company 
with a merchant or a philosopher. Each master will teach you 
to be what he is himself. Now, concludes the Saint, God came 
among men, in order that men might become like God, by 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



living and working with God-made man, as an apprentice roughly 
begging a trade, as a student acquiring rules and principles, 
as a full associate and partner finally sharing the whole vocation 
of his master. This is the meaning of being a disciple of Jesus 
Christ, and it is fully borne out by our Lord Himself, in telling 
of communion: "He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My 
blood, abideth in Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath 
sent Me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth Me, the 
same also shall live by Me " (John vi. 57, 58). By frequent com- 
munion our Lord imparts to us His own divine life, the motives 
of God, the divine activity of His love, the sweetness of a divine 
union like that of His own with His Father. These sentiments 
are sung beautifully by Holy Church, in one of her hymns for 
Corpus Christi: 

" Se nascens dedit socium, 
Convescens in edulium, 
Se moriens in pretium, 
Se regnans dat in praemium."* 

God is given to us as fellowman by the Incarnation. He is 
paid down as our ransom in His atonement. He is placed on 
the divine throne for us as our reward in heaven. And God 
is made ours — flesh, blood, soul, and divinity — by His Real 
Presence in the Eucharist. All this is realized by the personal 
possession of Christ in Holy Communion. 

"Rejoice and praise, O thou habitation of Sion: for great 
is He that is in the midst of thee, the Holy One of Israel " 
(Is. xii. 6). All heaven was made for Christ, and He prefers 
the poor habitation of my soul, nay, even of my body ; " stand- 
ing at the right hand of God" (Acts vii. 55), and at the same 
time sitting down to banquet with me; true God of true God, 
and yet my guest and my brother. Andrew and another disciple 

*" In birth man's fellowman was He, 
His meat while sitting at the board, 
He died his ransomer to be, 
He reigns to be his great reward." 



THE BLESSED EUCHARIST 



following after Jesus near the banks of the Jordan, He turned 
and looked at them, and then He said: "What seek you?" 
They said to him : " Master where dwellest Thou ? He saith to 

them: Come and see and they abode with Him that day" 

(John i. 38, 39). "O how happy a day did they pass. Who 
can tell us what things they then learned from the mouth of 
their Savior," comments St. Augustine, and he adds : " Let us 
build a dwelling for Him in our hearts, to which He may come 
and converse with us." When we in turn ask Him, " Master, 
where dwellest Thou ? " He answers : " Upon thy altar ; and 
at Holy Communion in thy heart." 

No wonder that the present Supreme Pontiff, Pius X., urges 
all Catholics to go frequently to Holy Communion, to go every 
day if they can only keep free from mortal sin; to bring their 
littlest children to communion as soon as they can be made to 
understand that it is God Who is going to be given to them, and 
bids us make our whole lives worthy of such a privilege by the 
practice of all Christian virtues. Yet many Catholics hold back — 
some through timidity ; multitudes through base sinfulness. Our 
Pope cries out to us with St. John the Baptist : " There hath 
stood One in the midst of you Whom you know not " (John 
i. 26). 

" The Master saith : Where is My refectory where I may eat 
the pasch with My disciples? And he will show you a large 
dining room furnished " (Mark xiv. 14, 15). 

What is the right prayer of preparation for communion? 
It is the oblation of ourselves to God in Holy Mass, praying 
for the privilege of dying with Christ. Whatever a Christian 
offers his Master, short of death, must be offered in token that 
he is ready to give up all, immediately, and even unto death, 
for his own sins and those of all mankind. St. John, the 
Eucharistic Apostle, addresses us especially when he says : " In 
this we have known the charity of God, because He hath laid 
down His life for us ; and we ought to lay down our lives for 
the brethren" (1 John iii. 16). Whatever private intention we 



152 



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may have in our communion, Jesus is entitled to the fundamental 
one, expressed in His own words : " This is My body which is 
given" (Luke xxii. 19) ; " This is My blood of the New Testa- 
ment which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins " 
(Matt. xxvi. 28). The Mass and communion are only mine 
to offer up because they are Christ's, and to Him they are ever 
the renewal of Calvary, the assemblage of all of His sacrifices. 
St. Peter's admonition, too, must not be forgotten : " Christ 
therefore having suffered in the flesh, be you also armed with 
the same thought" (1 Peter iv. 1) — the full oblation of all my 
joys and my sorrows, even of my life for sinners. If I have few, 
or no bodily sufferings to give, I can certainly offer to God a 
desire to suffer, and the sweet savor of a penitential spirit : " A 
sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit; a contrite and humbled 
heart, O Lord, Thou wilt not despise " (Ps. 1. 19). 

I offer myself to Thee, O Jesus, on the altar. Thou in 
turn dost offer me with Thyself to Thy Father. Thy offering 
of Thee and me is as one offering, so close are we united by 
Thy love for me and my love for Thee. O Jesus, I offer Thee 
all the men, women, and children whose salvation depends on me 
(awful thought), that since Thou and I are made one by this 
holy sacrament, so my service of these souls may be Thine 
own, both for time and for eternity. 

The Eucharist is a memorial to us of the Crucifixion of 
Jesus : " For as often as you shall eat this bread, and drink this 
chalice, you shall show the death of the Lord until He come " 
(1 Cor. xi. 26) — a remembrance to us indeed, but also to Him, 
and how deeply it must move Him. Can there be any doubt but 
that He would have us remember His death at our communion 
with tenderness something like His own? The remembrance 
of Christ's sufferings, exceeding as they do all ever known to 
mankind, is the sweetness of our every joy — Christ's the suffer- 
ing, ours the joy. 

" Can it be, O Jesus, King as Thou art, that Thou dost come 
here and place Thyself in my hands, and in my heart, and seem to 



THE BLESSED EUCHARIST 



153 



say: I died once for thy sake, and I come to thee now to show 
thee that I do not regret doing so, but that, on the contrary, 
if there were need I would give My life for thee a second time " 
(Letters of Blessed John of Avila). Lord, eternity is indeed 
long, and its joys are indeed great. Give me its happiness, 
I beseech Thee — a gift worthy of Thy riches and of Thy bounty. 
And yet, O Lord, a gift of an eternity of bliss, without close 
union with Thee, is not equal to that of Holy Communion. For 
herein Thou grantest me Thy own Self, the fountain source of 
heaven's ceaseless ages of joy and of peace. This gift of gifts, 
and giver of gifts, Thou bestowest on me every day, nay Thou 
forcest it upon me with Thy persistent love. Well has Thy 
prophet said of Thee : " He filled them with the bread of heaven " 
(Ps. civ. 40). 

Saying such things to Jesus on the altar is only talk, but 
it is affectionate talk, and exceedingly delightful. It is all 
I can do — poor me! I must not despair because I have but 
" two brass mites " to cast into His treasury, for this is all 
I have (Luke xxi. 3, 4), namely, to tell Him that I love Him. 
Those words have a divine fire that burns up concupiscence 
within me, and hinders me from loving what Jesus hates. 

Yet it is true that Jesus asks of us more than we have got 
to give. Ruysbrceck says : " He consumes us without being 
satisfied; His hunger is insatiable." What then? Shall He re- 
main unsated? No, He gives us the superfluity of His own 
power of loving, making us so far " partakers of the divine 
nature" (2 Peter i. 4), "and consuming our life," continues 
Ruysbrceck, " in order to change it into His own." 

" Sing ye to the Lord, for He hath done great things ; show 
this forth in all the earth " (Is. xii. 5). 

Thanksgiving is the overflow of the understanding and the 
will upon the memory, which thereby recalls the favors of the 
past. Now Jesus says of the Eucharist: "Celebrate it in re- 
membrance of Me" (Luke xxii. 19). The offering of the 
Eucharist itself is then my thanksgiving after communion. I 



154 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



offer the gifts of all the ages as my thanksgiving to the living 
God for my communion, since I offer Jesus the Son of the living 
God, Who said : . " When I shall be lifted up above the earth, 
I will draw all things unto Me" (John xii. 32). Every virtue 
of the Heart of Jesus is thereby embraced in my Deo Gratias. 
The lessons of the Eucharist are all summarized in that of 
gratitude. And O how deep it should be. O heavenly Father, 
whatever token Thou givest me of Thy love, the one greatest 
token is the gift of Thy Son. Him do I now possess, Him 
do I now give unto Thee, as my thank offering. 

St. Ignatius was once making a voyage by sea from Spain to 
Italy. A dreadful storm struck the ship, and the passengers and 
the crew were in a panic. The Saint alone was calm, but owned 
that he was sad, saying afterwards : " I was not afraid on account 
of my sins, nor of possible damnation, but I was overcome by 
shame and sorrow for not having been grateful enough for 
God's favors, and employed them well enough in His service " 
(St. Ignatius' Testament). Regret for forgetfulness of favors is 
in itself a good thank offering. What can I say, Lord, but this 
" I love Thee." What can I promise but this: " I will always 
love Thee." . And I will love as Thou lovest, both God and man. 
For Thy sake I will love good and bad men, indiscriminately 
and everywhere; I will do favors, and forgive injuries for no 
other reason than for Thyself. This shall be my life's thanks- 
giving. 

"The voice of the Beloved, behold He cometh leaping upon 

the mountains, skipping over the hills Arise, make haste, 

My love, My dove, My beautiful one, and come " (Cant. ii. 8-10). 

Lord, Thou comest suddenly, and Thou breakest in upon 
me with terrible eagerness. Jesus answers : " Yes, My son, 
I am eagerly searching for thee, for thou art My debtor, and 
thou must pay what is Mine — thou owest Me an infinite debt, 
for in Holy Communion I have given thee My very Self. Thy 
debt is so far above thy power to pay, that I must reduce thee 
to bondage, as My only compensation, seizing on all thy goods; 



THE BLESSED EUCHARIST 



155 



and especially must I appropriate to Myself thy very soul, with 
all its thoughts and affections." Lord, I thankfully become Thy 
bondsman. Teach me to realize at how great a price Thou hast 
purchased me. Instruct me, I implore Thee, in my duty to Thee, 
my divine Master. Jesus answers : " Thy duty is sincerest 
thanksgiving and imitation of Me in the Eucharist. For if 
there I allow thee to do with Me whatsoever thou pleasest, 
why shouldst thou not allow My Holy Spirit to do with thee 
whatsoever He pleases? Thus shalt thou best pay thy debt and 
give thanks." 

Sometimes a soul repines against God, because He might 
force him to be perfect and does not. What! would you have 
Him treat you as the artist does the stone, with chisel and 
mallet? Would you rather have the perfection of the marble 
statue, than the glory of a child of God? Yet force us He 
does, in a way, just as He forces us to love our father and 
mother, by the compulsion of gratitude, so that we shall say: 
I cannot help loving God because He has loved me so long and 
so tenderly ; gratitude compels me ; I am under the constraint of 
His loveworthiness, as my heavenly Father, and my Savior, as 
the bestower of every gift of fatherhood and of salvation in 
Holy Communion. To me, then, be applied, in all its terrific 
force, the threat of the Apostle: " If any man love not our 
Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha " ( 1 Cor. 
xvi. 22). 

What is done for a multitude of men is too often done for 
a multitude of ingrates. The spread of the boon among many 
causes vagueness of appreciation in each ; yet St. Thomas teaches 
that one of the perfections of a divine giver is that His gift 
to all is general and complete to each in particular. Grant me, 1 
O bountiful Jesus, the gratitude of Thy Apostle who says: 
"He loved me, and He delivered Himself up for me" (Gal. 
ii. 20). For me, O Lord, didst Thou come down from heaven 
and take flesh and blood ; for me didst Thou brave the assaults of 
demons, and bear the sorrows of hell; for me wast Thou be- 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



trayed and cursed and shamed and crucified — all for me, as if 
I alone of all men was to be saved. 

This thought makes my thanksgiving personal. As salvation 
is my personal possession, so must my personal love be given in 
return. Personal sanctification is Christ's will with me, and 
mine with Him must be direct and individual thank offering. The 
peculiar office of Mass and communion is to bring home to 
Catholics, taken separately, the fruits of the Crucifixion, as if 
each had been present personally on Calvary. What can be 
more glorious? The little child can love Jesus in childlike ex- 
clusiveness of possession, the dull toiler can expend on Him his 
stupid but perfect love as upon a divine guest Whom he monop- 
olizes, just as well as any doctor of divinity, as any famous 
preacher in their more cultured worship. He admits me to a 
private audience, nay to closest union of love, though I have 
been a loathsome sinner; He commits Himself to me to safe- 
guard His honor, though I have betrayed Him repeatedly; He 
sets me forth among my fellows as His advocate, though I 
have often taken sides with the devil against Him. The least 
I can do is to pour forth to Him my heart's most fervent thanks. 



XVII. 

MAKING A VIRTUE OF NECESSITY* 



To be forced to depend entirely upon God is a better con- 
dition than to be dependent in part on Him and in part on one's 
own efforts also. " I have always been fond of making a virtue 
of necessity," says St. Teresa {Letter lxxiv.). It sounds para- 
doxical, but it is quite right to say, that the better service of 
God is by virtue that is compulsory. 

The words of Jesus in the Garden : " Not as I will, but as 
Thou wilt" (Matt. xxvi. 39), achieved our salvation, the com- 
pulsory act of a Savior Who yet " was offered because He 
willed it" (Is. liii. 7). It is better to let God gain you to His 
side than to strive to gain God to your side. One of the accusa- 
tions of the Royal Prophet against the Israelites is that they 
" Waited not for God's counsel " (Ps. cv. 13). The spontaneous 
activity of guileless souls responsive to the attractions of grace, 
is the highest order of spirituality. As Moses was bidding fare- 
well to Israel, he commanded them : " And thou shalt build an 
altar to the Lord thy God, of stones which iron hath not touched, 
and of stones not fashioned nor polished; and thou shalt offer 
upon it holocausts to the Lord thy God" (Deut. xxvii. 5, 6). 
Why this rude architecture for the divinest uses ? Because, as we 

*For a powerful exposition of the spiritual doctrine here treated, the 
reader is respectfully referred to the small posthumous work of Father 
J. P. de Caussade, S.J., entitled Abandonment, or Absolute Surrender to 
Divine Providence, edited by the late Rev. Henri Ramiere, S.J., translated by 
Ella McMahon (New York: Benziger Brothers). The English version, which 
is accurate and exceedingly appreciative, was due to Father Hecker's en- 
couragement, who had used the original continuously from its first appearance. 

(157) 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



must suppose, the Lord would welcome the homage of simple 
hearts more gladly than that of those refined by human instru- 
mentality, even the holiest. He loves the artless yearnings of 
untainted minds. Virgin soil attracts His husbandry by pref- 
erence. And all experience shows the peculiar force of sacra- 
mental grace upon youthful minds untouched by the iron of 
man's art, unfashioned and unpolished by other hands than God's 
own. If this be true of ordinary existence, it is especially so of 
the breathings of a patient soul writhing under the scourge of 
adversity. 

St. Paul (2 Cor. vi. 4-6) enumerates the virtues of the 
Christian, and he begins with patience — " much patience." This 
is the only one of his lengthy list to which he gives an adjective — 
" much patience," until he comes to the last and greatest : " char- 
ity unfeigned." An honor this for patience. And indeed the 
whole peril of the pilgrim is lest he shall be deficient in patience 
and insincere in charity. 

The apostolic contrast of strength and weakness is thus ex- 
pressed : " Gladly, therefore, will I glory in my infirmities, that 
the power of Christ may dwell in me" (2 Cor. xii. 9). Could 
anything be straighter against the world's wisdom? A logician 
would run St. Paul to this absurdity: weakness is equal to 
strength. The Apostle instantly accepts : " When I am weak, 
then am I powerful," and he goes yet deeper into this divine ab- 
surdity : " For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in 
reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for 
Christ" (2 Cor. xii. 10). 

The divine use of affliction is that it elicits the prayer of 
patience, which never goes far astray from Calvary's bounty. 
" When thou shalt seek the Lord thy God," said Moses to Israel, 
" thou shalt find Him ; yet so if thou seek Him with all thy heart 
and all the affliction of thy soul " (Deut. iv. 29). God's shadow 
is more healthful than the world's sunshine, to use a saying of 
St. Francis de Sales. Visitations of sorrow dredge a channel 
deep and wide for the stream of heavenly consolations sure to 



MAKING A VIRTUE OF NECESSITY 



159 



flow into it in due time; consolations and divine guidance. For 
wisdom, according to Job, is " not found in the land of them 
that live in delights" (Job xxviii. 13). 

Abandonment to God's will is itself a consecration to a life 
of perfection. Whosoever keeps the rule of patience takes God 
for his novice master. Seldom do sick men appreciate how di- 
rectly they are being brought under God's leadership. Any 
serious consideration of the lot of man, shows conditions of 
trial so universal, that all must agree that heaven's best favor 
is fortitude in adversity, patience in pain and bereavement. What 
else can be God's purpose in our miseries but the universal offer 
of the grace of patience? Must not the office of suffering be 
great in quality and extensive in scope, since Providence has 
made it coextensive with human existence ? Atonement for sin is 
its primary privilege. But there is another, which Bishop Hedley 
states in his Book of Retreat: " Suffering gives a certain kind 
of intensity to acts of the will, which nothing can give. This 
is what recommended it to the Heart of Jesus (a Heart desirous 
of proving to men the reality and the depth of its love)." And 
the same author quotes St. Thomas : " The first cause of the 
Passion was that Christ wished it to be known how much God 
loved man." The first cause, then, of man's suffering, is to 
show how much man can love God both by sharing in Christ's 
atonement and in intensifying his heart's love. 

Submission to the divine will is an inevitable virtue: I may 
be obedient or I may be prayerful, but I must be patient. Sooner 
or later one must turn in his agony to his nearest associates and 
cry with blessed Job : " Have mercy upon me, have mercy upon 
me, at least you my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched 
me" (Job xix. 21). A man before and after a long illness is 
two different men. If a Christian, he is advanced into a new 
being of chastened self-mastery; if a worldling, he is sunk into 
degeneracy, for he has willfully refused the divine discipline. 
Some men hate afflictions, and these are worldlings ; some with- 
out hating, dread them, and these are timid Christians; others 



i6o 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



though dreading them yet appreciate their place in God's plan, 
receive them calmly, and then even thankfully. To that class 
all of us are called. Nor should we flinch from aspiring to the 
class beyond, namely, those who seek suffering by preference, as 
did our Master. " I have a baptism wherewith I am to be 
baptized ; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished " 
(Luke xii. 50). 

One sometimes projects a good work after much prayer, 
feeling that God is with him — and the result is failure. What 
then ? Amid disappointments, misunderstandings, calumnies, and 
failures, God is still to be thanked as the origin of the under- 
taking. The work though a failure in itself, is a success as a 
stimulant to confidence in the divine goodness. The Lord praised 
David : " Whereas, thou hast thought in thy heart to build a 
house to My Name, thou hast done well" (3 Kings viii. 18) — 
yet would He not have David but David's son build His temple. 
The grace of bearing his disappointment was a better gift from 
God to David, than the honor of building and dedicating the 
temple. 

In earlier Christian days, how often was the whole reliance 
of a community snatched away by martyrdom? Yet the people 
rejoiced; and God compensated them. Not only was it a hap- 
pier lot to have advocates in heaven instead of leaders on earth, 
but conversions, the most unexpected, supplied the loss. This 
dispensation was not for the age of martyrs alone. It was in 
fulfillment of an invariable rule of Providence : " Give, and it 
shall be given to you, good measure" (Luke vi. 38), a rule that 
prevails as well in men's exchanges with divine Providence as 
with one another. 

The martyrs, by making a virtue of necessity, have outranked 
all other kinds of saints in the liturgy of Holy Church. So should 
the bearing of arbitrarily inflicted injuries outrank other forms 
of holy charity towards men — contradictions and contempts, ig- 
norings of merit and perverse misunderstandings of motives, 
bullying manners and violent tempers, disobedience of inferiors 



MAKING A VIRTUE OF NECESSITY 161 

and suspicions of superiors. These seem little when set against 
the rack and the wild beasts of our heroic ancestors, yet they 
are often harder to bear. Suffer them with joy and they win 
you a martyr's crown ; suffer unto blood, that is unto annihilation 
of all human favor, do it willingly, gladly. You are young ? Be 
glad for God's sake that it is said of you : he is too eager, he is 
ambitious, opinionated, silly. Old ? Be content to hear that you 
have survived your usefulness and are played out, are reactionary, 
are a hindrance and should be turned down. Pray to God to 
give you much of this kind of suffering; some of it is surely 
well merited by your sins, all of it elevates motives and humbles 
pride. 

Just as meritorious, and alas, far oftener available, is aband- 
onment to God in the misery of our remorse of conscience. We 
cannot too brightly realize that God works at His best— if we 
dare so speak — in drawing good out of evil, nay, that it is the 
lowest evil that, as it were, provokes Him to the highest good. 
When my past sinfulness agonizes me, then, O God, lead my 
anxious spirit into the inner chambers of holy trustfulness, that 
I may there abandon myself to Thee for pardon and salvation. 
Herein is the penitent's road to that goal of predestination known 
as recollectedness of spirit, which is defined as a tendency to con- 
sider the present things of earth with a mind preoccupied with the 
future things of eternity. Who cannot hold his own against the 
bitterest tauntings of men and devils, if he can only say with 
the Psalmist : " The princes sat and spoke against me ; but Thy 
servant was employed in Thy justifications" (Ps. cxviii. 23). 

Proceed quietly; be not much interested in anything except 
in the routine of prayerful exercises, and herein seek that quiet 
which abandons all to God. Commend afflictions to Him, joys in 
like manner ; absorb all attention in utilizing the means and meth- 
ods of keeping mentally close to Him without easily leaving 
Him. Make the paramount interest of life an uninterrupted 
offering of loving submission to God. This doctrine is indeed 
unanimously taught, but it is very little known and less practised. 



l62 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Its application is best illustrated by God's using dire calamity as 
a vocation to extraordinary sanctity. Take an instance from 
among the hermits of the fourth century. One of them was a 
famous master of holiness known as Paul the Simple. In the 
world he had been a poor man of the lowest state of life. When 
he was sixty years old his wife proved false to him. A deadly 
misfortune was this, and Paul fell under the blow, but only to 
recover quickly, and to recognize the hand of God beckoning him 
to a high degree of sanctity among the anchorites of Egypt. 

We read of the gift of tears among holy souls; and the 
gift of tongues was a marvelous apostolic attribute. But St. 
Chrysostom, treating of St. Paul's imprisonments, speaks of 
another: the gift of chains. " If," says he, " I might have had 
my choice to stand with the angels near God's throne on high, 
or to be bound with St. Paul, I would have preferred the dun- 
geon. Would you rather have been the angel loosing Peter, or 
Peter in chains? I would rather have been Peter. This gift 
of chains is something greater than to stop the sun, to move the 
world, or to command devils " (quoted by Alban Butler, June 30). 
We now and then read of a dying man begging to have some love 
token inclosed with his corpse iri his coffin. It is related of 
Babylus, a martyr bishop of Antioch, who died in prison for the 
faith in the persecution of Decius, that he begged that his chains 
might be buried with him in his grave. Such are the love-tokens 
of God's heroes. 

Even in little things thoughtful souls find a divine greatness. 
The clock striking the hours tells of the eternal years ; the wind 
tossing the dust in the street tells of the vanity of human striv- 
ings. Not only the wheels of life, but every little cog upon them 
is recognized as part of the divine plan. What, then, must be 
the lessons taught by the death of our dear ones, or by the anni- 
hilation of our own bodily forces. To a discerning mind the out- 
ward order of our life, whether in little things or great, is in 
direct contact with the invisible Prime Mover Himself. What 
of our soul's little whirlwinds of joy or great tempests of sor- 



MAKING A VIRTUE OF NECESSITY 



163 



tow ? To a spiritual man all thought is union with God. Think- 
ing, for instance, of Jesus on His hidden throne in a church, 
abandoning oneself absolutely to Him there, at Mass, at and 
after Holy Communion — is not this high spirituality ? Hence the 
Apostle's reproach to the Galatians that they would not give up 
wholly to God, though they were men, " before whose eyes Jesus 
Christ hath been set forth, crucified" (Gal. iii. 1). Of all hap- 
penings in heaven or earth that of the Eucharist is supreme ; no 
less so in its teachings than in its graces. 

A mark of Christian character is constant advertence to an 
overruling Providence. As Jesus saw His Father in every event 
even the most trifling, so in like manner does the Christian whose 
heart Christ has taken possession of. O what a joy, when human 
motives of placid acceptance of the inevitable find themselves 
elevated into divine impulses of abandonment to a Father's care, 
making the most ordinary things of life all heavenly. This is 
the best granting of the prayer : " Thy will be done on earth 
as it is in heaven." To yield allegiance to God in all the vary- 
ing circumstances of life, whether petty or grave, is the mark 
of a recollected man, nay, it actually is self-recollection. Such 
a one, responsive to the inner touches of the Holy Spirit, is 
from that very fact careful not to forget the external guidance 
of Providence, and he scrutinizes the most minute signs of divine 
love. A sparrow is cheap ; yet " one of them doth not fall upon 
the ground without your heavenly Father" (Matt. x. 29). The 
hairs of my head grow unnoticed and soon are wasted ; yet " a 
hair of your head shall not perish" (Luke xxi. 18). God is 
found supreme in His bounty among the tiny fiutterers of the 
grove: "your heavenly Father feedeth them" (Matt. vi. 26); 
and He is revealed in His sovereign beauty amid the waving 
grass of the meadow: " I say to you that not even Solomon 
in all his glory was arrayed as one of these" (Matt. vi. 29). 
Divine majesty is amazingly revealed in a drop of water under 
the miscroscope. An infinite purpose of unity is shown in the 
anatomy of a little moth. God is in all things and in every par- 



164 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



ticular thing, eliciting thanksgiving, adoration, awe, and above 
all confidence in His Fatherly care. 

Simply a general view of God's guidance is not adequate, 
nor conscious acceptance of it in matters of supreme importance 
only. God's current influence is, as a rule, more potent to sanc- 
tity than His occasional and decisive interference, which is 
usually but the sum and completion of His current teachings. 
These have occupied God, and should have absorbed us for years 
perhaps. God in everything and ourselves in God, is another 
expression of making a virtue of necessity. 

The greater changes of Providential rule throw us back 
upon the lesser; upon one littlest point can God turn the vast 
universe of our destiny. A priest in vigorous health once said 
to Father Hecker — whose long agony of pain was soon to end 
in death — that he felt full of courage. Father Hecker answered : 
" That is the way I used to feel. I used to say : O Lord ! I feel 
as if I had the whole world on my shoulders, and all I've got 
to say is, O Lord, I'm sorry you've given me such small potatoes 
to carry on my back. But now — well, when a mosquito comes 
in, I say: Mosquito, have you any good to do me? Yes? Then 
I thank you, for I am glad to get good from a mosquito." 



XVIII. 



STRIVING FOR THE MASTERY, OR CHRISTIAN 
SELF-DENIAL. 

The good things of this natural life of ours, are rated 
by a religious spirit, not so much according to their intrinsic 
value, which is little, but according to their exchange value, the 
priceless good of the interior life. Thus food and drink for 
the body can, by abstinence, be exchanged for heavenly fortitude 
of the soul; the company of men, can, by holy solitude, be ex- 
changed for the company of God. The saints always felt bound 
to be doing or not doing something or other, whereby they would 
feel this life to be a pilgrimage to a better life; and they longed 
for death as the changing of a pilgrim's weeds for the eternal 
wedding raiment. Blessed Henry Suso says : " The exercise 
of refraining from things gives men more power than the actual 
possession of the things." Otherwise expressed: Mastery of 
self is better than ownership of the good things of life. Who 
had not rather rule his appetites than revel at banquets ? "Every- 
one that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all 
things, and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown ; 
but we an incorruptible one" (i Cor. ix. 25). "Everyone" — 
all are called to this striving, and this crown ; " from all things ;" 
the universe is filled with our opportunities to win control of our 
appetites, both lawful and unlawful. In enjoying our rights 
over creatures, we are liable to be enslaved by our own bonds- 
men. Our appetites and passions are constantly playing the sub- 
stitute for reason and grace. There is no tyrant so cruel as 
a revolted slave. 

Father Hecker used to quote approvingly a maxim of Brook 
Farm : " A gross feeder will never be a central thinker." Heav- 

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THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



enly Wisdom itself proclaims the inaptitude of a soft nature for 
a noble-hearted career of any kind. " He that loveth good cheer 
shall be in want; he that loveth wine, and fat things, shall 
not be rich" (Prov. xxi. 17). Yet both corporal and spiritual 
self-indulgence constantly challenge the right of reason to con- 
trol them. 

The sensualist says : " I live to eat ;" the philosopher says 
" I eat to live ;" the Christian says : " I eat to learn how to die." 
That prodigal abundance leads to sensuality is notorious : " Be- 
hold this was the iniquity of Sodom thy sister ; pride, fullness of 
bread, and abundance, and the idleness of her and of her daugh- 
ters " (Ezech. xvi. 49). Sodom is a name linked to lust in its 
basest form, yet the Lord by His prophet declares its iniquity 
to be what was its cause: luxurious and slothful living. 

Blosius speaks of affliction as the solid food of God's 
elect. Beware then of even spiritual dainties, look suspiciously 
on your sweeter devotional moods; do not rate them too high. 
God's favors are to be valued by the quality of love they elicit: 
a love as content to be full as to be hungry, " both to abound 
and to suffer need" (Phil. iv. 12); impartial between joy and 
sorrow; a love that is fervent amid coldness and nakedness 
of spirit — love for God as faith reveals Him, and entirely for 
His own sake. Why argue? Look at the Life and Passion of 
Christ. Read the history of Christian sanctity. In the earlier 
era of the Church, every virtue was practised as a preparation 
for martyrdom — one's whole life was a novitiate for martyrdom, 
and all that was done was bent to train the soul for that supreme 
test. And even now, if one were chaste and truthful, devout 
and obedient, humble and charitable with a view to the ultimate 
offering of every human joy to God in a martyrdom of love, his 
every virtue would be set in the right perspective, along the way 
of the cross : " And He said to all : If any man will come 
after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily 
and follow Me" (Luke ix. 23). 

This much stands clear: some amount of self-conquest is 



STRIVING FOR THE MASTERY 



167 



of obligation, not only by Church law, but by immediate divine 
law. It is necessitated by the disjointed relation of reason 
to appetite, for that "the flesh lusteth against the spirit" (Gal. 
v. 17), is as certain as is our miserable sinfulness. And the 
flesh must be subdued as an unbroken horse is subdued — by 
the infliction of pain. Cruelly disordered, too, is the relation 
of man's reason and his will towards God ; he is fearfully inclined 
to rebellion, and he must be bitted and bridled and reined, and 
wholly harnessed by the stern mastery of the fear of eternal 
damnation before he can so much as begin to work out his sal- 
vation. 

Both in its spirit and its methods, the subjection of appetite 
to reason, and of reason to God is to the majority of mankind 
downright foolishness. To renounce lawful pleasures to yield to 
adversaries ; to associate suffering with joy as cause and effect ; to 
make submission to equals and inferiors the goal of ambitious 
striving; to prefer the invisible and the absent to the visible and 
the present. All this undeniably foolishness in the eyes of men 
generally is, in the eyes of the predestinated, just as undeniably 
" the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Cor. i. 24). 

Henry Dorie, one of our Corean martyrs, doubtless loved 
his native France with all the ardor usual to his countrymen; 
but he loved the land of his terrible vocation better; and when 
his friends lamented his holy banishment from home, he was 
wont to say : " Is any country a foreign land to one whose 
home is only in heaven ? " To one who is truly detached his 
dearer home is that whose vestibule is martyrdom. Live here, 
if you dare, as if you really belonged to another world. Asso- 
ciate in that spirit with your fellowmen, eat and drink, and 
work and talk, and rest and think, as if about to depart out 
of the land of Egypt for the land of promise. Alas, I love 
this life. I cherish the visible world, and I fight shy of the 
invisible. I am a man of the present and not of the future, 
and I cannot deny it. What shall I do, O God, my God ? What 
can I do but lament and mourn my shortsightedness, and crave 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



that powerful feeling of exile bestowed through the dispensation 
of affliction : " For I know," said the Most High by His prophet, 
" that the people will not hear me, for they are a people of a stiff 
neck; but they shall turn to their heart in the land of their 
captivity " (Baruch ii. 30). 

When Adam was driven out of the earthly paradise, he 
was forbidden to seek a new one anywhere short of heaven, and 
that fiat was perpetual. Since then it has not ceased to be God's 
will that every child of Adam should feel himself a child ban- 
ished from home for his crimes, and living in the world, as in 
a penal colony. Of every single human being it is true that he 
is a stranger and a pilgrim, to be rewarded finally with the 
home joys of heaven, only in proportion to the evenness of mind 
with which he shall have borne his exile on earth (1 Peter ii. 
11 ; Heb. xi. 13). 

St. Lawrence Justinian never drank so much as a drop of 
water between meals. When urged to do so, in the excessive 
heat of midsummer, he said : " If we cannot bear this thirst 
now, how shall we endure the fire of purgatory." He was 
thought to be a visionary. But as a matter of fact, is there any 
wisdom more practical than making ready for a crucial test of 
endurance in the future than by severe exercise in the present. 
" Everyone that striveth for the mastery, refraineth himself 
from all things" (1 Cor. ix. 25). The advantage of Christian 
mortification is double — it both hardens one to the inevitable 
suffering of purgatory, and shortens the same by providing a 
timely substitute. An ancient Father in a monastery once saw 
a vision during meal time. Three of the monks were eating the 
very same food, yet it seemed to him that what one ate was 
honey, what another ate was bread, and what the third one ate 
was dirt. He was much puzzled by this. But presently an angel 
instructed him. "Those who eat honey are such as sit down to 
table with fear lest they shall over indulge their appetite, and 
whilst eating never cease praying. Those who eat bread are 
those who contentedly and thankfully enjoy what God has given 



STRIVING FOR THE MASTERY 169 



them. Those who eat dirt are those who grumble, and say to 
themselves, 'I don't like this, and I can't eat that, and I wish I had 
the other.' " 

Read the writings of St. John of the Cross, and you will find 
two things: First, that the praise of self-denial, radical and 
emphatic indeed, and given as a necessary condition of the diviner 
kinds of prayer, is only occasional, while the whole series of 
books is mainly occupied with descriptions of the interior steps 
towards perfect contemplation. But read the Saint's biography, 
and you find the proportions reversed. Here there is a word 
now and then about his states of prayer; a brief chapter or two 
about the phenomena of his inner union with God, while almost 
the whole volume is occupied with the narrative of his mortifi- 
cations, his misfortunes, and the persecutions to which he was 
subjected. So it is with nearly all the saints. The entire spirit- 
ual career of every true Christian is occupied first by the elimina- 
tion of defects, by mortification ; but this is at best the preparation 
and constant accompaniment of the really formative influences, 
which are the secret communications with the Holy Spirit. One 
is never without the other. The outward phenomena are seen of 
men plainly enough ; the inward only fully revealed in Paradise. 

It is astonishing how many of the saints practised great 
austerities in spite of delicate health. They were entitled to 
dispensation from even the ordinary fasts of the Church, but 
they had such courageous hearts that they surpassed men of 
giant physical strength in bodily mortification. In truth for- 
titude is not measured by weight of brawn, or tested by the 
quality of the digestive organs. The battle of the cross is not 
to the physically strong. Perhaps the most marvelous thing of 
, all in the lifes of saintly bishops and priests, is that they per- 
mitted their apostolic labors to consume all the hours of daylight, 
and for their prayers robbed themselves of the hours of sleep, 
the body's most necessary refreshment. Before them was the 
example of their divine Master, Who often " passed the whole 
night in the prayer of God " (Luke vi. 12). 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



" Unto you it is given for Christ, not only to believe in Him, 
but also to suffer for Him" (Phil. i. 29). Would that I could 
realize the privilege of suffering. Faith, O Lord, is a gift of 
Thy bounty ; " it is given to me " to believe. But of all my 
beliefs the very weakest is that it is a privilege to suffer for 
Thee. Strengthen my faith in that particular, O Jesus Crucified. 
May I come at last actually to relish suffering for Thy sake. 

Let one but admit that he is called to perfection, and the 
next step is to realize what perfection means to a follower of 
Christ, the garden, the praetorium, the cross. Jesus Himself 
was not more surely doomed to suffer than is each one of His 
earnest followers : to suffer from Satan " who hath desired to 
have you that he may sift you as wheat" (Luke xxii. 31); 
from my fellowmen: "I have chosen you out of the world, 
therefore doth the world hate you " (John xv. 19) ; from my own 
perverse self : " The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the 
spirit against the flesh" (Gal. v. 17). Sorrow and trouble arise 
from every quarter, and assail an elect soul. " Ships travel 
faster in a storm than in a calm, citizens prove their love for 
country better in a war than in peace," wrote St. John of Avila 
to a friend who was serving God in adversity. 

Self-renunciation, when genuine, is a deep searching senti- 
ment, for often a high opinion of our labors or merits lurks 
hidden in the recesses of our hearts. We discover it by being 
put to the test of men's disapproval; if we do not readily refer 
the case wholly to God, if we harbor the least resentment, the 
secret is out: our motives in serving God have had some taint 
of self-interest, vainglory, or even of fretfulness and sourness. 
St. Cyprian tells of a vision granted by God to a certain man, in 
which a voice said to him: " Thou art afraid to suffer in this 
life, and yet unwilling to go hence ; what shall I do with thee ? " 
There is positively no other alternative — suffer here, or risk 
the suffering of purgatory there. Heaven is the only state free 
from this rule, and heaven is the reward of this rule's observance. 

A mariner's compass must be raised above the level, and 



STRIVING FOR THE MASTERY 



171 



must be poised on a fine point, then it swings easily towards 
the Pole. So a true Christian must be elevated in spirit, and 
balanced nicely on that point of honor and of principle that is 
called detachment from created things. Turn such a one which 
ever way you please, he always points to God. What good is 
the magnetic needle lying flat on the ground? One little point 
of earth is all it needs, more than this destroys its usefulness. 
So with a genuine Christian, his earthly support must be reduced 
to a minimum to develop the maximum of his sensitiveness to- 
wards heaven. " Unless a man be elevated in spirit, and set at 
liberty from all created things and entirely united to God, 
whatsoever he knows and whatsoever he has is of no great 
worth." This pregnant summary of the reason of mortification 
taken from a Kempis, Father Hecker wrote out, and pinned above 
his desk, and he constantly repeated it during his years of bitterest 
suffering. 

" Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot pos- 
sess the kingdom of God, neither shall corruption possess in- 
corruption" (1 Cor. xv. 50). A body fit for heaven is a 
spiritual body, its vices and concupiscences subdued, the animal 
nature reduced under the mastery of the spiritual — a truly divine 
achievement — every appetite wholly subject to reason, reason in 
turn wholly subject to grace. The most superficial knowledge 
of our bodily selves reveals the innate unreason of fleshly ten- 
dencies; and the least experience in managing this evil proves 
the need of rigorous, even violent measures of suppression. 

To burn with admiration whilst reading of the martyrs is no 
great offering to God — such flames are sometimes even less 
than painted fire. But it is better than nothing, infinitely better 
than not even reading about our religion's heroes. Invincible 
fortitude was theirs, peaceful admiration mine. Armed only 
with the love of Christ, the martyrs were more than a match for 
the ancient Romans, the conquerors of the world. But what am 
I a match for? What am I armed with? They were glad to be 
flung to wild beasts; they blithely stepped forth to be roasted 



172 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



alive for Christ. Dare I compare myself with them? Yet I am 
resolved to do enough of mortification to escape the reproach 
of being an utter coward. 

Let us not be greatly surprised at the small number of the 
fervent. Shall we expect the whole world to run after a way of 
living in which one must persuade himself that he gains more by 
losing this earth's goods than by retaining them? It may be 
objected that one may see God and love God in His creatures. 
Certainly; theoretically one may point out how reasonable it is 
to rise in thought from the creature to its Creator, and methods 
for doing so may be suggested. But when the test of actual 
practice is applied, we find it nothing short of heroic. Readily 
to rise from the corporal life to the spiritual is a proof of 
rare holiness. The seen does not teach the unseen without a 
mighty effort on the part of the learner; nor does the temporal 
incline us to love the eternal by any natural movement of the 
affections, except in spirits of rare native endowments. It is 
precisely in this that mankind shows itself a fallen race. In our 
pristine state, the Garden of Eden was so enchanting as to be fit 
for a meeting place between God and man. But of what pleasure 
garden of this sin-blighted world can it now be said, that the 
sight of its beauties and the enjoyment of its fruitfulness banish 
sensuality ? 

Each man has just so much aptitude, or rather, capacity, 
for communication with other creatures, and no more. Deprived 
of one object he seeks another, for he is made by God to seek 
and enjoy companionship. Now God has a prior, a divine 
right to our companionship, and the secret of the spiritual life 
is the concentration of this communing upon God. Our part 
of the process is withdrawal from all other objects, and the 
bestowal of our thoughts and our affections upon God. God's 
part, as we soon find, is that He most effectively elicits our 
soul's longings, and gradually absorbs its attentions and fixes 
its love upon Himself. But not without constant resistance 
from us. The interior history of every man consists of the 



STRIVING FOR THE MASTERY 173 



record of God's increasing invitations to his soul to leave all 
else, and take up solitary company with his divine Lover, and 
the soul's tricks and evasions to procrastinate the final and irre- 
vocable acceptance of this invitation. " For thus saith the Lord 
God, the Holy One of Israel: If you return and be quiet, you 
shall be saved; in silence and in hope shall your strength 
be" (Is. xxx. 15). Nor is this divine monopoly of companion- 
ship injurious to the rights of our fellowmen; for one purpose 
of God in drawing us to Himself is to fit us with His own 
divine qualities for making men happy, and in that condition to 
restore us to their society. 



XIX. 



THE MIGHT OF THE INWARD MAN. 

Origen was a famous defender of Christ and His Church 
in early Christian times. Leonides, his father (who after- 
wards died a martyr), had him baptized in infancy, and used 
to go to his cradle while the child was asleep, uncover his breast, 
and reverently kiss it, saying that it was the shrine in which 
the Holy Ghost was lodged. He had in mind St. Paul's teaching : 
" Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you? " (i Cor. iii. 16.) 

It is true that all of God's works which are extrinsic to 
Himself, are common to the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. 
But the Holy Scriptures and the saints and theologians of the 
Church, and indeed the Church herself, attribute to the Third 
Person the work of our sanctification. A conspicuous and dog- 
matic instance of this is found in the canons of the Council of 
Trent : " If anyone shall say that without the inspiration and 
help of the Holy Spirit going beforehand, a man can believe, 
hope, love or repent as he ought, so that the grace of justification 
may be conferred on him: let him be anathema."* 

Thus God is Himself the immediate source of all our good, 
as far as it makes for a happy eternity ; He is so by a most inti- 
mate union with our souls and a constant guidance of them. This 
is variously named the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the inspira- 

*" Si quis dixerit, sine praeveniente Spiritus Sancti inspiratione, atque 
ejus adjutorio, hominem credere, sperare, diligere aut poenitere posse, sicut 
oportet, ut ei justificationis gratia conferatur ; anathema sit." (Con. Trid., 
sess. vi., can. iii.) 

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THE MIGHT OF THE INWARD MAN 175 



tion of grace, the inner voice of God; and our part is called co- 
operation, fidelity to interior divine guidance, correspondence with 
grace ; and very generally it is named fidelity to conscience. This 
condition is the object of the Apostle's prayer for his converts: 
" That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, 
to be strengthened by His Spirit with might unto the inward 
man" (Eph. iii. 16) — strengthened in their thoughts and affections 
directly by God's own holiness, nay by His very Self. Albertus 
Magnus was once asked for an edifying thought, and he gave it 
thus : " Man receives God spiritually in his soul, as the priest 
receives Him corporally at the altar ; and this happens every time 
that through love of Him he abstains from some fault, even 
though it be but a word or a glance." 

Oftentimes, when even instructed and faithful Christians are 
bid to seek God in their own hearts, they often feel as if they 
were directed to journey into an unexplored country. They can 
hardly imagine that there is an inner sanctuary of God which is 
all their own, and in which the closest divine intimacy is ever 
awaiting them, yea, is awaiting even the newly penitent. " I 
ask but one thing of you," wrote Fenelon to a recently repentant 
friend, " which is to follow in simplicity the bent of your own 
mind for goodness, as you have formerly followed your earthly 
passions in pursuit of evil. Believe, then, your own heart, to 
which God, Whom you have so long forgotten, is now speaking 
in love, notwithstanding its ingratitude." No, it must not be 
supposed that the intimate guidance of the Holy Spirit is limited 
to persons of the higher spiritual grades. When, indeed, one's 
strivings are winning maturity of virtue, God's influence seems 
closer and His guiding hand stronger. But even in the earlier 
stages of an earnest man's progress, a light rises within him show- 
ing him his daily imperfections, revealing his past sins in their 
native ugliness, and at the same time urging him strenuously 
to constant increase of the two means of sanctification that lie 
most in his power, namely, purification of his present life from 
the least defects, and the doing of penitential works for a more 



176 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



adequate atonement of the past. The Holy Spirit is as well the 
master of novices as the perfecter of proficients. In the one 
case no less than the other, the soul must beware of resisting 
the admonitions of its Heavenly Guide, lest His voice be silenced. 
For guidance high and low the prayer of the Psalmist must 
be offered : " Show, O Lord, Thy ways to me, and teach me 
Thy paths. Direct me in Thy truth and teach me; for Thou 
art God my Savior ; and on Thee have I waited all the day long " 
(Ps. xxiv. 4, 5). Be it remembered, too, that this grace of divine 
guidance comes through the sacraments, whose influence is both 
inner and outer, abiding with us interiorly through the indwelling 
Spirit : " Because the charity of God is poured forth in our 
hearts, by the Holy Ghost, Who is given to us" (Rom. v. 5) — 
by Christ in His sacraments. Certainly it is a most blessed and 
delightful privilege thus to pass back and forth between the di- 
vine world of Holy Church's worship and ordinances, and the 
paradise of God's grace within our own minds. 

God makes Himself felt and understood to everyone who 
offers himself to His interior guidance. This does not change 
the substance of a virtuous life, but reveals its obedience and 
humility and prayer and charity as the direct result of immediate 
divine union. It does not make us feel like prophets of God, 
whose inspiration is quite different, but it makes us know, in a 
light all calm and joyful, that we are children of God. It is 
not a mission to work miracles, but an invitation from the depths 
of the soul to give up self-guidance, and follow the maxims of 
the Gospel under the very eye of the Deity Himself. How truly 
does St. Chrysostom say: that nothing so effectually cures a 
fault as the continual remembrance of God. 

How can we know that we are surely receiving God's secret 
communications? Is there any plain sign? The Cure of Ars 
gives an answer as clear as it is adequate : " When good thoughts 
come into our mind, we may be sure that the Holy Ghost is visit- 
ing us." Does your impulse incite you to do what is evidently 
good, or does it beckon you towards debatable ground? Is the 



THE MIGHT OF THE INWARD MAN 



after-feeling one of peace, or rather one of unrest? Is it ac- 
companied by affection for superiors, or censoriousness ? Has 
the new impulse come with discontent, a desire of change, or 
with tranquillity? Have you confidence that God will aid you 
to carry out these inward suggestions, and are you willing to abide 
His time, or are you hot for instant action? Instability is a 
bad sign; for in all graver matters God's drawing is continuous 
and gentle, yet peremptorily insistent, but never away from your 
usual obedience. By this means it is that a pious soul is trained 
into a real spirituality. All that is meant by sound judgment 
is granted the soul in full measure, so that it " judgeth all 
things " in its life prudently, being made by its interior lights 
competent spiritually to examine them (i Cor. ii. 15). St. 
Francis de Sales, echoing the traditional teaching, goes so far 
as to promise that fidelity to inner guidance fits one to perceive 
the divine approval, even in spiritual matters of everyday oc- 
currence. " A servitor of heavenly inspirations," he says, "knows 
at what time, in what order, by what method, each virtue must 
be practised " (Letters to Persons in the World, Mackey, p. 18). 

The guidance of the Holy Ghost bestows the force of God 
upon human endeavor, and gives the Church the benefit of souls 
filled with holy initiative. But what is here meant by initiative? 
What is not meant is this : to act of a sudden, even when the cause 
is good and the interior impulse is sane, strong and religious. 
Nor to act in grave matters without the counsel of devout and 
peaceful and experienced men. Nor yet to savor novelties with 
joy, and eagerly to search them out. No. Initiative is not to 
act without good advice, nor from love of innovation, nor with 
precipitation. 

But initiative is to seek diligently for new ways of glorify- 
ing God without forfeiting old ways, least of all criticizing them. 
Initiative is the spirit of the explorer and the pioneer, especially 
in spreading God's faith and His Church. It is to have confi- 
dence amid adverse circumstances, and to look for a betterment 
of religious conditions, quickly lending a hand to bring this 



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THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



about. It is to covet and ask the place of toil and of danger 
in dealing with God's enemies. 

Initiative is that spirit which makes little of one's own defi- 
ciencies when duty or opportunity calls for action : and constantly 
to make opportunity stand for duty. To have an adventurous 
spirit in religious undertakings. To be the first to advance when 
authority says " Go ! " and the first (however sadly) to stop 
when authority says " Halt ! " Never to allow oneself " to 
think " (we quote Father Hecker) " or to express a word which 
might seem to place a truth of the Catholic faith in doubt, or to 
savor of the spirit of disobedience. With all this in view, to 
be the most earnest and ardent friend of all true progress, and 
to work with all one's might for its promotion through existing 
organizations and authorities."* 

Some say, or would wish they had the courage to say, that 
all this is but theoretical if not visionary; and that it interferes 
with a common sense management of religious affairs. Well, 
some would manage supernatural activities, such as all depart- 
ments of the care of souls, including the education of chil- 
dren, by the rules of worldly policy. These aspire to the shrewd- 
ness of worldlings in dealing with immortal souls. They would 
attend to divine things in a human spirit. Others adopt, indeed, 
methods and means of a human kind, but they are guided by the 
lights acquired from prayer, holy Mass and their communions. 
Which kind of wisdom is the better for a workaday life of zeal? 
St. Francis Xavier, one of the most successful among practical 
soul-savers, declares for the latter. Speaking of some details in 
the management of hard sinners, he wrote : " But to understand 
when this is proper to be done, how far to proceed, and with 

*True initiative was illustrated by St. Francis de Sales throughout his 
whole career. He composed his first sermon whilst yet a young man in 
deacon's orders, and preached it on Pentecost — a discourse on the descent 
of the Holy Ghost. He was the least innovating, and at the same time 
most holily venturesome, of God's servants. Read his chapters on Inspirations 
in the Devout Life and in the Love of God for a full and perfect treatment 
of the great doctrine here so scantily and defectively given. 



THE MIGHT OF THE INWARD MAN 



179 



what precautions, is what the guidance of the Spirit and your 
own experience must teach you at the particular time and occa- 
sion " {Life, by Coleridge, vol. ii., p. 117). And again, when 
arranging for the instruction of converts : " After they have 
professed their belief in all that the Church teaches, the cate- 
chist instructs them to pray to the Holy Ghost for His seven 
gifts, those especially which can help them to believe the Catho- 
lic faith" {Life, by Coleridge, vol. i., p. 167). 

It is sometimes alleged that this rule of following God's 
Spirit in all things applies entirely to recluses, and is adapted only 
to contemplatives. No, not by any means. There is no guidance 
of the Deity so plain as that which makes men perform their 
usual duty of prayer, whether it be the prattling of the child in 
his petitions, the anguish of the stricken sinner, or the rapture 
of the saint. When you feel inclined to pray for a lawful object, 
you are now under the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit. 
If that inclination be unusually strong, if it be persistent, even 
vehement, O rejoice and be glad, for it means the getting in 
due time of a favor of more than ordinary value. If it be a 
painful yet peaceful feeling, having in it the stings of remorse 
or the forebodings of danger, O pray harder and harder, for 
these are divine warnings against perdition. 

No interior condition is more surely an inspiration from 
God than an enduring tendency to observe a daily rule of mental 
prayer. As to even the method of meditation, that, too, in its 
more deep flowing currents, is ordered by no other than the divine 
power within us. A full knowledge of St. Ignatius and his 
method of meditation, leaves little doubt that his method was in- 
spired. " So high and sovereign is the exercise of mental 
prayer," says De Ponte in the first paragraph of his wonderful 
book of Meditations, " in which we meditate upon the mysteries 
of our holy faith, and converse familiarly with Almighty God, 
that the principal master of it can be no other than the Holy 
Ghost Himself. The holy Fathers learnt it by His inspiration, 
and they have left us many documents of much importance, 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



how to exercise it with profit, following the motion of that prin- 
cipal Master." And later on that author returns with emphasis 
to the same teaching : " True it is that the greatest certainty in 
these petitions and colloquies depends principally upon the Holy 
Spirit, Who, as St. Paul says, 'asks for us with unspeakable 
groanings' (Rom. viii. 26). For with His inspiration He teaches 
us, and moves us to ask, ordering our petitions, and stirring up 
those affections with which they are to be made." 

Much of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and in earlier years 
by far the greater part, is granted us for resistance to evil. 
What gave the martyrs their crown? Resistance to idolatrous 
laws; the sovereignty of the one true God demanded that of 
them in their soul's interior. The same help is needed for our 
own daily martyrdom : " I see another law in my members, 
fighting against the law of my mind and captivating me in the law 
of sin" (Rom. vii. 23). To hold one's own against our inward 
evil tendencies needs the inward " inspiration and help " of the 
principle of good — God. As a room is aired, so is a soul purified. 
Is a room foul? Open wide the windows, all of them, and all 
the doors; and the pure air and bright sunshine cleanses every- 
thing, dries up all foul dampness, leaves everything clean and 
sweet. O my soul, open thy windows and doors wide and free, 
and call God's Spirit within thee. Despondency flees and hope 
returns; doubts are dried up like malarious damp. God has 
come, bright and sweet, all powerful and all loving. Prayer is 
become the breathing in of God's holiness ; self-denial is made 
the confession of God's supremacy. Two things will give thee 
highest joy, and these two are one: the first is that thou shalt 
be made conscious that this purifying of thy life is the infinite 
God Himself ; the second is, that it is love, nay it is loving union, 
for " he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit " (1 Cor. vi. 17). 

How great the boon of knowing that what wakes my soul 
out of the torpor of worldliness is the living God Himself, Whose 
force is infinite love, Whose action is the communication of Him- 
self ; that what is moving and softening and wounding and healing 



THE MIGHT OF THE INWARD MAN 181 

my affections, lighting up the dark places, plucking out evil habits, 
thawing out what was frozen, is the infinite and eternal Deity 
Himself. Nor is there in this any essential difference, as we have 
already said, between souls high and low in the ranks of God's 
friends. For St. Bernard testifies : " From the time of God's en- 
trance into the interior of my soul, He has never made His 
presence known by any extraordinary tokens, either by voice or by 
visible appearance. I have felt His activity only by the move- 
ment of my heart; and I have experienced His active power by 
the amendment of my vices, by the mortification of carnal pas- 
sions, by the penitent view of my faults, by the renewal of my 
life, by the enlarged vision of all things which show forth His 
greatness " (Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles). 

Weakness of conviction of the dogma of the indwelling Spirit 
is the reason of partial failure in many religious careers. It 
is especially the explanation of what is known as dissipation of 
spirit. The mind of an unrecollected man is like an unfenced or- 
chard, whose fruits are not for the owner but for all passers-by 
— a comparison used by St. Francis de Sales. The inner divine 
voice is drowned by the demands of undisciplined nature, filling 
the soul with excuses and questionings, and clamors for favors 
and demands for "rights." Sensuality, even when it is not gross, 
yet deadens the mind to what a Kempis calls the " divine whis- 
perings," which die away amid the pleasures of the table or the 
comforts of an easy life. Even the innocent desires of the heart, 
such as craving for the company of friends and relatives, may 
easily confuse, perhaps wholly deaden, the tones of that voice, 
which will make its plea for love only amid the silence of all 
other lovers. The result is that multitudes of souls become good 
and never grow better. One does religious acts and does not 
think religious thoughts ; and finally becomes like the man in 
the prophesy: "As he that is thirsty, dreameth and drinketh, 
and after he is awake is yet faint with thirst, and his soul is 
empty" (Is. xxix. 8). 

Fidelity to the interior influences of grace, beginning, in the 



182 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



case of ordinary souls, with the voice of God in conscience and 
ending with the terrible self-exactions of the nobler kind of 
natures — those who are called to emulate the angels in holiness — 
fidelity to the inner divine Master is the fundamental virtue of 
religion. Even saints find cause for regret in their faulty exer- 
cise of it. For example, Blessed Mother Barat, although she 
was imbued with a worshipful obedience to God's external au- 
thority, yet wrote to the Venerable Mother Duchesne, at a diffi- 
cult crisis of the Sacred Heart Congregation which she had 
founded : " The fruits of an exact fidelity to the Spirit of our 
Lord are immeasurable. I have but one regret in the world, and 
that is not to have been always faithful to It. O if I had to 
live over again, I would listen only to the Holy Spirit, and act 
simply by His inspirations {Life, by Baunard, vol. i., ch. x.). 
How well do the saints know that every attribute of the Deity is 
expended upon us in the guidance of the Holy Ghost. As God 
is, so is He my guide. His immensity envelops me everywhere ; 
His majesty appals me in my sinfulness; His goodness melts 
the hardness of my heart — a most miraculous victory. And in all 
this His touch arouses my consciousness that I am under imme- 
diate divine control. 

The guidance of the Holy Ghost is thus both a mark of pro- 
gress and its rule. It is also the promise of final perseverance. 
A man's blood grows weak and thin with age. But his soul's 
blood, the grace of God, never ages. O Holy Spirit of God, 
Thou art eternal life, and Thou art my life. The force of Thy 
inspirations grows stronger with the weakening of the forces of 
my natural life. Virtue is beautiful forever. Love blooms eter- 
nally. O how much purer is the life of God within my thoughts 
than the life of man that is in my blood and wrapped about me 
in my flesh. The one is always dying most miserably, the other 
ever increasing in vigor, as our Savior promised : " The water 
that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, 
springing up into life everlasting" (John iv. 14). 

When everything in life is done because God inspires it, or 



THE MIGHT OF THE INWARD MAN 183 



His providence arranges it and places its interior motives, this 
is perfection. Now the mission of the Spirit within the soul is 
love, love to be given, love to be obtained, and this reciprocal 
movement of love is to be the stream on which at the end is car- 
ried to heaven the merits of a lifetime. It is God Who inspires 
the soul with love of Himself as the supreme good, love of a 
son for his Father, of a spouse for his Spouse, or a brother for 
his Brother. As these relations exist in God's own inner life of 
Father, Son, and Spirit, so are they transferred to the inner 
life of the human soul, and thus to that soul God is made all in 
all. " The estate of the divine union," says St. John of the Cross, 
" consists of the total transformation of the will into the will 
of God in such a way that every movement of the will shall be 
always the movement of the will of God only " {Ascent of Mt. 
Carmel, Book I., ch. xi.). 

Let us conclude with the prayer of Holy Church in the Mass 
for Wednesday after the second Sunday of Lent : " O God, the 
restorer and lover of innocence, direct to Thyself the hearts of 
Thy servants : that the fervor of Thy Spirit being lighted within 
them, they may be found steadfast in faith, and effective in work. 
Amen." 



XX. 



PRAYER THE RESPONSE TO GRACE. 

A poor laborer in the parish of Ars used to spend hours on 
his knees before the Blessed Sacrament, his eyes fixed on the 
Tabernacle, but his lips never moving. The Cure asked him one 
day: " What do you say to our Lord all the time, my friend? " 
The simple soul replied : " I say just nothing at all ; I only look 
at Him and He looks at me." 

This is literally the " prayer of the simple view," a grade of 
contemplation, indeed, but one which is not quite absent from 
ordinary vocal and meditative prayer when offered with fervor. 
Now the great difference between a high and a low level of 
attention in prayer is this same fervor — it is the difference be- 
tween accepting a regimen of devotional exercises as it is cut 
and dried by custom, and the capability of arranging the same on 
one's own account according to the " perfect law of liberty " 
(James i. 25). 

Prayer is the soul's return stroke of grace. The heart 
drives the lung-cleansed blood throughout the body, and then 
sucks it back again to the lungs for fresh cleansing and enrich- 
ment, and renewed distribution. Grace projects God's love into 
our thoughts and affections, and prayer thankfully returns our 
thoughts and affections back again into God's heart for renewal. 
Thus prayer is the reaction of our souls upon God in search of 
a renewal of the divine bounty. Hence the necessity of prayer, 
the obligation of it, the efficacy of it, the joy of it. Hence the 
expressions met in Scripture and in all spiritual teaching : Every- 
thing depends on prayer. 

Prayer antedates all other offices of religion, and pervades 
them all, even the sacraments. It is related to salvation as a 

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PRAYER THE RESPONSE TO GRACE 185 



means indispensable to an end. It is the most universal of all 
helps to heaven. How seldom do we realize this full dignity in 
our morning and evening devotions. Take from me the Blood of 
Christ in the Sacrament of Penance, the Humanity of Christ in? 
that of the Eucharist, and I can yet be saved by prayer. Give 
me both those great sacraments every day, and, without the re- 
sponsive stroke of prayer steadily driven towards heaven, their 
infinite gifts lodge on the soul's surface, soon to be shaken off 
by the jostling of the world. 

God grants our prayers because of " Christ Jesus, that died, 
yea that is risen also again; Who is at the right hand of God, 
Who also maketh intercession for us" (Rom. viii. 34). Also 
because of the virtues we practice in making our petitions; 
confidence in His love, humility, patient waiting. Another and 
very singular reason is given by our Savior, our importunity 
(Luke xi. 5-10) ; which plagues men into doing us a favor so 
that they be rid of us, and pleases God into granting it, because 
it is an appeal of love too peremptory for Him to resist: For 
Thy own dear sake, dear Lord; for Thy heavenly Father's sake; 
for Thy Blessed Mother's sake, who is helping me with her 
prayers; and in memory of Thy bitter death. Love's blind per- 
sistence and absolute perseverance, its total disregard of personal 
deserving or of anything else but its painful necessity and God's 
infinite goodness, this is prayer's forlorn hope, and it never 
fails of success. " Our Father Who art in heaven." If we 
speak to one another of our God, we call Him our heavenly 
Father. If we pray together, the Son of God says : " Thus there- 
fore shall you pray: Our Father Who art in heaven" (Matt, 
vi. 9). O God, how great, nay, how divine, is the privilege 
of prayer, and how dimly do men appreciate it. " There never 
was a father so much a Father as God," says Tertullian. And 
what brother is so much a brother as He Who being God is yet 
Himself "the firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. viii. 29), 
and communicates to us His love for His Father from a heart 
similar to ours in all Its joys and sorrows. 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



The motives of prayer are graded by their disinterested- 
ness. But, practically considered, the first of motives is penance 
for sin; for if sins be deeds, words and thoughts, atonement is 
principally made by words and thoughts in prayer. The penitent 
Psalmist knew it well : " My heart grew hot within me, and in 
my meditation a fire shall flame out" (Ps. xxxviii. 4). The 
prayer of penance was granted this supremacy; it outranked 
'every other prayer in gaining our redemption. The great prayer 
of Christ was His Agony in the Garden, a flaming fire of sorrow. 
The Agony in the Garden is the world's act of contrition. " Sit 
you here," He said to His Apostles, ".till I go yonder and pray 
My soul is sorrowful even unto death" (Matt. xxvi. 

36, 38). 

The Lord has thus dignified purgative prayer because it 
is the most necessary, and is an essential condition of every 
other kind of prayer ; because it bolts hell's door, and when 
made perseveringly, blocks it up with eternal adamant; be- 
cause it is our most precious offering to the Father, costing 
the Blood of His Son; because it is the most difficult even to 
begin, and when begun, to continue to the end; finally, because 
'it ministers to us our sweetest joy, the inward assurance of recon- 
ciliation with heaven. We must spend our lives perfecting this 
prayer, as our Redeemer spent His. How deep has been the 
wound of sin, since even its scar of half a century must be burnt 
and burnt again, to stop the oozing of its putrid recollections- 
burnt with scalding tears and fiery prayer of sorrow — to be suc- 
ceeded with consolations of unspeakable solace. Of course we 
would not say that this penitential condition is always dominant 
in a perfect man, only that it is so at frequent intervals, and is 
always impending. 

Men of science are deeply concerned with the study of 
heat and light as the ruling forces of nature, and both of these 
live in the air. In like manner those who study divine knowledge 
and love, the ruling elements of supernatural life, tell us that 
these are in prayer, as heat and light are in the atmosphere. 



PRAYER THE RESPONSE TO GRACE 187 



The warmth of the love of God thaws the ice of our cowardice ; 
and the brightness of God's countenance generates the hope of 
heaven's glory. But as there are tempests in the air, with black 
darkness and forked lightning, so in prayer there is the deepest 
gloom of the " obscure night," and " from the throne proceedeth 
lightning and voices and thunders" (Apoc. iv. 5). Neverthe- 
less these hard pressures of majesty, and shocks of divinity in 
our more recollected prayer, are ever succeeded by the pene- 
trating rays of divine peace. 

Closeness of man to God here below cannot be without the 
painful protest of man's finiteness. " With the hearing of the 
ear I have heard Thee," cried Job, " but now my eye seeth 
Thee. Therefore I reprehend myself and do penance in dust 
and ashes " (Job xlii. 5, 6). But immediately after his soul was 
flooded with golden waves of tenderness and joy, with the very 
perfection of confidence in that God Who had dealt so hardly with 
him. We are not all men of Job's simplicity and uprightness 
and absorption in the Divine Will; yet each of us is dealt with 
by God for the same end, namely, our entire sanctification, and 
by the same means, the strong impulses of grace provoking the 
responsive impulses of prayer. Has this no bearing on the de- 
vout reciting of our daily prayers? attentive spiritual reading? 
readiness to converse about spiritual things? good provision of 
prayer in preparation for the sacraments? and general recollec- 
tion of life? 

It is not our purpose to examine prayer that is wholly 
contemplative or even partly so. Yet St. Teresa tells us that 
many simple-minded persons say the Pater Noster in such spirit- 
ual wise, as to " enjoy pure contemplation without knowing it, and 
even to be raised to highest union with God " ( Way of Perfection, 
Stanbrook, xvii., 3). But the end we have in view is to key 
up our reader's appreciation of the worth of fervor in ordinary 
devotional exercises, especially in paying our debt of penance. 
Joy must be religion's characteristic trait, though at intervals 
for God's best purpose it be obscured. " Justice and peace and 



188 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 

joy in the Holy Ghost " (Rom. xiv. 17) is an inspired definition 
of Christianity. Christians who honestly and fervently practice 
daily prayer, are gradually cleansed by its penitential workings 
from tendencies to grave sin, and in due time safeguarded from 
the frequency of even deliberate venial sins. 

Prayer creates Christian character. Its constant practice 
soothes the rurHings of an irascible temper. It also overcomes 
the hard influence of a rude environment. St. Athanasius knew 
St. Anthony after he had been in the desert wilderness alone for 
thirty years, and he said that this long era of solitary prayer 
made the great hermit anything but a rude, sullen man; it 
endowed him rather " with a most obliging and sociable air." 
Inward peace makes outward kindness. You behold the effects 
of prayerful habits in mingled gravity and gentleness of manner, 
the quick response of sympathy, the ready trustfulness of one's 
fellowmen — these and many other beautiful traits are seen in ad- 
dition to the sublimer ones of love of God and charity to the poor. 

"The prayer of faith shall save the sick man " (James v. 
15). Faith depends on prayer, a fact little appreciated. When 
religious truth becomes a matter of devout pondering, rather 
than of sharp examination and discussion, argumentation yields 
place to preception. The Summa of St. Thomas is to many a 
vast series of dry disputations; it was Father Hecker's medita- 
tion book. Cardinal Newman found the Nicene Creed the sub- 
limest of poems. In acute doubt about articles of faith, the soul 
that seeks rest in arguments casts itself on a bed of nettles. 
The man that measures dialectic blades with the evil one, must 
have a subtle mind indeed. St. Francis de Sales, the safest 
guide for doubting spirits, thus advises a friend : " When tempted 
against Catholic doctrines have a great and longsuffering cour- 
age ; do not lose it for mere noise, especially in temptations against 
the faith. Our enemy (the devil) is a great clatterer, do not 
trouble yourself at all about him; he cannot hurt you. I know 
that well. Mock at him and let him go" {Letters to Persons 
in the World, Mackey, p. 143). 



PRAYER THE RESPONSE TO GRACE 189 



Which of us dare venture upon the spiritual hazards of a 
single day without watching at the gates of the Holy Spirit 
with morning prayer? (Prov. viii. 34.) Who dare work under 
the eye of God for a single day, and fail to take' account of his 
work in the evening? Who dare spend a precious day and not 
reckon up its wasted hours? — except a spendthrift or a repro- 
bate. The patriarch Isaac is praised, because he went forth into 
the fields, the day being now far spent, " to meditate " (Gen. xxiv. 
63). "Is any of you sad," asks the Apostle, "let him pray" 
(James v. 13). The solace of a bereaved heart is in silent 
and solitary prayer, silent acts of submission to God's will, lonely, 
face to face conflict with grief. Witness Saul of Tarsus in his 
gloom — blind, helpless, drowned in shame. Yet God's words 
about him to Ananias foretold his deliverance : " Behold he 
prayeth " (Acts ix. 11). An immense comfort in affliction is also 
found in family prayers, and the common spiritual exercises of a 
community. 

Many complain that their prayers are not heard. This can 
only be true of their begging for temporal favors. These are 
sometimes refused because the Lord commutes the temporal bless- 
ings into spiritual ones, especially the virtues of patience and for- 
titude. Or again, the Lord foresees injury, for many a child is 
spoiled by being petted. God will not spoil His generosity by 
indiscriminate giving, except to His enemies. The devil prayed 
leave to torment Job, once, twice, thrice, and in each case 
his prayer was immediately granted (Job i. 11). The evil one 
prayed our Lord to enter into a herd of swine, and his prayer 
was quickly granted (Matt. viii. 31). Yet once, twice, thrice, 
did St. Paul beseech the Lord to deliver him from a loathsome 
temptation, and he was refused each time, in order that divine 
grace might have freer play in him, and that his spiritual life 
" might be made perfect in infirmity " (2 Cor. xii. 7-9). 

No matter how often we are denied favors of this kind or 
that, the boon of eternal salvation is never denied to a soul 
with an established habit of prayer. Think of it, prayer is 



190 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



an interview. A conference with the Almighty God, in which 
we beg eternal happiness of Him ; and forthwith He promises to 
grant our petition; and bestows upon us His Holy Spirit as 
"the pledge of our inheritance" (Eph. i. 14). Bear in mind 
our Savior's reproachful words : " If you then being evil, know 
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will 
your good Father in heaven give the good Spirit to them that 
ask Him" (Luke xi. 13). 

Prayer is again defined as the elevation of the soul to God: 
and it always brings down " the good Spirit to me " — as my Phy- 
sician, Almsgiver, Savior, Food, Companion. Man is created to 
fly upwards into God's pure atmosphere, as a bird is made to fly 
in the air. Our soul's characteristic trait is aspiration by petition, 
for better things, to the Giver of all good gifts (James i. 17). 
Whosoever does not use this heavenly faculty represses it, for 
it must be used to keep it alive. If he says no prayer at all 
he is like a bird whose wings are stripped of feathers ; if he prays 
but infrequently, his wings are clipped. "Deo Gratias!" was 
continually on St. Patrick's lips during his long missionary career, 
ever thanking God for His favors both sweet and bitter. It was 
his way, also, to say : " Thanks again ! " to his people when he 
received any gift, or even the least attention; his habit of grati- 
tude overflowing upon all whom he met. 

No article of faith is more consoling than that love is 
the fulfillment of every law; and it is just as true that the 
form of love called gratitude is the solace of every distress 
of conscience. However great the debt of sin, one act of love 
wipes out the whole terrible score; however hopelessly insolvent 
I may feel afterwards, I can quiet all forebodings of God's 
anger by loving thanksgiving for His favors. To devout souls, 
thanksgiving to God is not felt to be something of their own 
to be given or withheld as they please; it is a return of love 
demanded by justice. 

" If a man will give the whole substance of his house for 
love, he shall despise it as nothing" (Cant. viii. 7). Love does 



PRAYER THE RESPONSE TO GRACE 



191 



not huckster, it pays down the whole price demanded by the 
beloved, and pays it at once. We think this text applies to 
the commonest of all purchase prices paid by love in its barter 
^ with God for favors, namely, time — the time expended on prayer. 
All true Christians lavish time in devout exercises, just as 
gamblers lavish money in play. 

We say of the man who gathers the means to pay a pressing 
debt, that, in his desperation, he begs, borrows, and steals the 
money. A really devout man greedily eyes his allotted occu- 
pations of the day; of one he begs a little space, of another he 
borrows fifteen minutes, of a third he steals the whole time; he 
is a brigand for " the prayer of God." A man of that kind feels 
qualms of conscience for neglecting even a little part of his 
usual devotions. One who is zealous but not devout, hustles 
prayer and its demands out of the path of his zeal, for " he has 
zeal without discretion." Have you special reasons for prayer, 
or powerful drawings to it? Then you must not huckster; be 
just, be generous, and expect marvelous results. 



1 



XXL 



THINK DILIGENTLY UPON KIM, OR THE PRAYER OF 
MEDITATION. 

The very word meditation scares many. To many it means 
a complicated spirituality, a signal code by which one deals with 
God; instead of pious thoughtfulness, it is mistaken to be the 
threading of a mental labyrinth, the playing of a game of mental 
hide and seek. Yet it is not so; it is only obedience to the 
Apostle's injunction : " Think diligently upon Him that en- 
dured such opposition from sinners against Himself ; that you be 
not wearied, fainting in your mind" (Heb. xii. 3). 

Here we have a master's definition of the holy art. When 
we think of divine things, not to learn, but to make ourselves 
love them, this is called meditating. Meditation is no other thing 
but an attentive thinking, voluntarily reiterated or entertained 
in the mind, in order to excite the will to holy and salutary af- 
fections and resolutions. It is not spoken prayer, but it is its 
force. What the heart of a man is to his tongue, that is mental 
prayer to vocal prayer. 

Now, such an exercise of mind calls for method (a word 
to frighten laggards with), yet the venerable Father de Andreis 
protests against meditation degenerating into " a mere exercise 
of the mind." Doubtless there is solid gain in working out a 
scheme of reasoning about holy things, and this is meditating 
methodically. But suppose one's mind is fagged out; or (as 
often happens) one has had no early training in systematic 
thought of any kind; or suppose one cannot thus think from 
native defect? What then? Methodical treatment of devout 
truths is then impossible, and it is good, even necessary, freely 
to range about in one's memory for matter of thought, or to 
read a favorite book slowly, ending with some purposes of amend- 

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THINK DILIGENTLY UPON HIM 



193 



ment, or aspirations for improvement, or adoration of Christ and 
His Father. The weight of our pondering had best be brought 
practically to bear upon some particulars of our daily conduct. 
This go-as-you-please method St. Paul recommends : " What- 
soever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever just, what- 
soever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, 
if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these 
things " (Phil. iv. 8). Many a priest, for example, makes a good 
meditation worrying and praying over certain sinful parishioners, 
meanwhile mistaking such holy thoughts for distractions. Many 
parents meditate all their wakeful hours most efficaciously, mourn- 
ing over dissipated sons or wayward daughters ; as it is said of 
our Savior in the Garden : " Being in an agony, He prayed the 
longer" (Luke xxii. 43) — and the harder. 

There are many points of view as to method. Father Thomas 
of Jesus, speaking of the proper spirit for reading his book on 
our Savior's Passion, says : " That the mind may act with more 
freedom, and enter with more ease into those affections to which 
it finds itself moved, we have not thought proper to subject it to 
any particular order" (Sufferings of Jesus, Introduction, iii.). 
On the other hand, St. Ignatius was an inspired master of 
strictly ordered meditation, and had well nigh all Christendom 
for his devoted pupils. Nevertheless he bids us drop our method 
and our points and our sequences, and instantly to follow any 
devout inner guidance whithersoever it may lead us. 

Interior prayer transforms itself, if we may say so, into all 
the various phases of our minds ; and its- ways among men are as 
diverse as their multiform temperaments. There are souls who 
are not helped by a stated method, and some are even hindered. 
David, clad in King Saul's coat of mail, with his helmet of brass 
and his great sword, said to him : " I cannot go thus, for I am not 
used to it" (1 Kings xvii. 38, 39); so these undrilled spirits 
must go to their holy task with their shepherd's sling, and stones 
gathered from their soul's running brook. They are so formed by 
God. He leads them with sweet aspirations, or deep musings, or 



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direct perceptions ; methods only clog their thoughts. The holy 
expedients of prayer must not, therefore, be mistaken for its aim 
and purpose, nor be made an iron rule to be riveted on every 
spirit. At its best, method is methodical not mechanical. 

Meditation is closely related to holy reading. The latter 
exercise consists of reading much and thinking sometimes; the 
former of thinking much and reading sometimes. The sight of 
a familiar book is equal to the sight of God's altar to many a 
prayerful spirit. Holy thinking is also closely joined to holy 
writing, and doubles the force of mental prayer by making it a 
written prayer also. Mental prayer thereby becomes an exceed- 
ingly deliberate vocal prayer, the intervals all enriched with 
precious thoughts. We are, however, supposing that one is not 
writing things for himself and his good angel and God and 
the Holy Ghost. Newman used to say that he liked to meditate 
pen in hand. 

We say of a crime of more than ordinary malice, that it 
was premeditated. Being planned beforehand, its wickedness was 
deeper. So the goodness of a good set deepens if planned be- 
forehand, and the morning meditation should be premeditated 
over night. This makes surer the actual observance of the prac- 
tice of mental prayer. " If I have remembered Thee upon my bed, 
I will meditate on Thee in the morning" (Ps. lxii. 7). Our 
divine prayer-master, the Holy Ghost, teaches us thus: divine 
things the last thought before sleeping, the first thought on wak- 
ing. A woman making a garment first cuts a pattern out of 
paper; then by this pattern she cuts the cloth before sewing it 
into shape. So we sketch and pattern our mental prayer at night, 
and fit it perfectly and finally to our souls in the morning. 

During sleep the ferment of the mind like yeast in a batch 
of dough, works to the enlargement of our thoughts. The Son 
of Sirach says of man that " the sleep of night changeth his 
knowledge" (Ecclus. xl. 5). This unearned increment of holy 
wisdom is always of essential value. Not seldom it has an extra- 
ordinary influence upon us, " for God," says Cassian, " sometimes 



THINK DILIGENTLY UPON HIM 



195 



reveals in this repose of night, and as it were, sleep of the soul, 
mysteries which were formerly either obscure or entirely un- 
known." This nightly forecast of morning meditation is, per- 
haps, • the best part of every method taught in the schools of 
devout living. Method indeed. If Holy Wisdom has its own 
method, this is the beginning of it: "He that awaketh early to & 
seek wisdom shall not labor, for he shall find her sitting at his 
door" (Wisd. vi. 15). As the involuntary muscles of the human 
system, the heart and the intestines, do their vital work all un- 
consciously to us, so the faculties of the mind work out conclu- 
sions and resuscitate memories in the quiet hours of sleep. 

Our Savior uses the all unnoticed fructification of plants of 
the field as a comparison of the unconscious growth of the inner 
garden of grace : " So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should 
cast seed into the earth, and should sleep and rise night and day, 
and the seed should spring, and grow up whilst he knoweth not " 
(Mark iv. 26, 27). He was Himself accustomed to pray in the 
early morning hours, bearing in His soul the living seed of the 
divine thoughts of the previous day: "And rising very early, 
going out, He went into a desert place and there He prayed. 
And Simon, and they that were with Him, followed after Him, 
and when they had found Him they said to Him: All seek 
for Thee" (Mark i. 35-37). All men sought Him whilst He 
sought His Father. This is the ideal of active beneficence. For if 
we seek God very early in a solitary place, then will men seek 
us, drawn to our solitude by God's attraction. 

The good of meditation is in this : it is systematic thinking 
of God. Do this at set intervals, and frequently; and soon you 
will do it naturally and all the time. To think of divine things 
readily is close to entire perfection. It is a blessed truth that 
one can acquire this habit by ordinary assiduity. Out of strict 
observance of daily meditation, grows habitual advertence to 
God. When the elder Tobias gave his dying message (as he 
thought it would be) to his well-loved son, he said : "And all the 
days of thy life have God in thy mind" (Tob. iv. 6) — a legacy 



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of daily mental prayer, a legacy " more precious than gold and 
the topaz" (Ps. cxviii. 127). 

Meditation is the soul's sincerest preaching to its dearest 
auditor — itself. And until a man has expounded to himself the 
entire doctrine and life of Christ, he can have little hope of 
fully benefiting by it. The best preacher is one who starts his 
hearers preaching to themselves, and each of us can preach to 
himself by learning how to meditate. 

It is not our purpose to treat elaborately of methods, for 
many books do that in all variety, the principal ones being the 
Exercises of St. Ignatius and the Devout Life of St. Francis 
de Sales. But as to the preliminary steps all agree that for 
daily meditation a stated time should be set apart ; and that some 
short prayer should be offered up in the beginning to steady the 
mind and set it down to its work — avoiding overmuch ceremony. 
How much ceremony does a child use in going into its father's 
room ? Scarcely any, unless it dreads a whipping ; and even then 
very little if its father be like our heavenly Father, from Whose 
anger we can beg off with a few tears and a sincere promise. St. 
Ignatius' introductory prayer is of the briefest: "O God, may 
all the thoughts of my mind, all the affections of my heart, 
all the operations of my soul, wholly and entirely redound to 
the glory of Thy divine majesty" (Spiritual Exercises). Surely 
this is the geography of the inner kingdom of God, the thoughts, 
affections, actions of my spirit. Let Him have them and He has 
all. In fact meditation is the filling of my nature's soil with the 
seed of holy truth and love, that it may bring forth in due time 
the sweet fruit of steadfast loyalty to Jesus Crucified. 

In meditation the soul does not consider the divine life of 
Jesus at random, it focuses its attention upon some particular 
event, some wonderful act, some lofty teaching, until the heart 
is made one with His in this. The result is not a general impres- 
sion, but that very special one our Master had in view — exactly 
that and all of that. One seeks, perhaps, to be inspired with 
the particular graces His hearers had at the time they heard 



THINK DILIGENTLY UPON HIM 



197 



Him, especially His Apostles; to acquire their frame of mind. 
Then this is bent to a practical end, to the amendment of a fault 
or the acquiring of a virtue which shall link us firmly to Him. 
Thus from the mind to the heart God's grace travels on the road 
j of meditation. Thus, for example, from considering the First 
1 Word of Jesus from the Cross we learn to pardon enemies; or 
we gain inspiration for our confession from His prophecy of 
the last judgment. In course of time and by daily practice of 
this holy thinking, our Lord's influence permeates our deepest 
souls. By meditation the principles of religion are kept bright 
in our minds. In matters of policy we are wisely guided. Pure 
truth constantly acting on a docile spirit, clears its vision and 
solidifies its sincerity. The difference between one who meditates 
daily and one who does not is essential; it is all the difference 
between gravity and lightness of character in spiritual matters. 

Mental prayer is a powerful aid in the holy and supreme 
ordeal of life's battle with temptations. " Thy words have I 
hidden in my heart, that I may not sin against Thee" (Ps. 
cxviii. 11). That I may stand my ground in time of passion's 
assault; silently receive a blow whether of hand or tongue, 
" more concerned at his fault who hurts me than at my own 
injury;" easily give up work when sickness disables, or obedience 
commands ; and just as easily set to work again when these con- 
ditions change. To be apt and facile for virtue both ordinarily 
and on sudden occasions, nay, to be true even unto the agony of 
death, requires a spirit well regulated by long-continued medita- 
tion on the maxims of Christ's Gospel. Mature convictions of 
the good and the true precedes vigilance and valor in resisting 
evil. 

None the less the putting of mental prayer in the daily routine 
of religion in a place fixed and firm, involves no small exertion 
1 of courage. St. Christopher was a man of giant frame, and he 
used to carry pilgrims on his shoulders across a rapid stream to 
a holy shrine. One stormy night a little boy came along, and 
asked to be carried over to worship Christ at the midnight office. 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Christopher took him upon his big shoulders with a smile. But 
as he entered the stream with him he exclaimed : " Child, Thou 
art the heaviest load I ever bore, and I can scarcely endure Thy 
awful weight." The child answered : " Brother, hold fast of Me, 
do not let Me drop into the wild flood of waters." Christopher 
braced himself up and exerted his vast strength to the utmost, 
until he landed his small but strangely heavy burden in safety. 
As the child's feet touched the ground, He began to shine with 
heavenly lustre. Christopher sank upon his knees all amazed 
and troubled. Then the Boy reached up and put His arms around 
the big man's neck, and kissed him lovingly, saying: "Brother, 
thou shalt be called Christopher from henceforth, for thou hast 
carried Christ Himself, and He thanks thee for thy perseverance 
in the angry waves of the stream." So shall I win Christ's bless- 
ing if I bear Him through life's stormy waves in my heart's 
dearest thought. The grace of perseverance is given to steadfast- 
ness in daily meditation : " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will 
give thee the crown of life " (Apoc. ii. 10). 

How sure am I of passing an innocent day if God's words 
attend me amid the silence of dawn, if they speak to me forenoon, 
afternoon, and evening, until I hearken again before retiring to 
new voices from above in making my plan of the next day's 
meditation. What downright guiltiness of act is there, which is 
not due to some vein of guilty thoughtlessness? Mental prayer 
forefends this by holy thoughtfulness. The least acquaintance 
with life shows that its evils are best explained by men's want 
of thought. From miserable moral mediocrity down to utter 
depravity of life, our woe is due to want of serious reflection on 
things eternal. "With desolation is all the land made desolate; 
because there is none that considereth in the heart " (Jer. xii. n). 
The great realities of life are not really known as such : " Justice, 
chastity, and the judgment to come" (Acts xxiv. 25). We sin 
because our eternally established relations to the Supreme Being 
are but transiently considered, and " the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and the charity of God, and the communication of 



THINK DILIGENTLY UPON HIM 



the Holy Ghost" (2 Cor. xiii. 13) are upon men's lips as the 
prattle of unthinking children. " Believe me," says St. Francis de 
Sales, " it is only taste which fails you, not sight : you see, 
but without satisfaction ; you chew bread, but as if it were tow, 
without taste or relish" (Letters to Persons in the World, 
Mackey, p. 240). Christians do not penetrate to the meaning 
of their faith because they make no mental effort to do so. Those 
who are called to save men's souls are failures for the same 
reason. They live in the delusion that one can serve men better 
by work than by prayer. The contrary is the truth. The man 
who prays well, works well. If my work is above my ability 
I can level up to it by daily meditation, because I can always 
pray well. The essential element of success in prayer is good 
will 'and that alone, a quality cheap and abundant in every 
Christian soul. We must bear in mind that mental prayer is 
mainly a preparation ; it is a means admirably calculated to induce 
a state of mind spontaneously prayerful. St. Bridget says that 
" Meditation is the needle that should draw after it the golden 
thread of devout aspirations." The prophet exclaims : " We are 
filled in the morning with Thy mercy, and we have rejoiced, and 
are delighted all our days" (Ps. lxxxix. 14). The overflowing 
plenty of the morning's pious thoughts fills the emptiness of the 
whole day, whose " wilderness shall rejoice, and shall flourish 
like the lily " (Is. xxxv. 1). 

Meditation thus generates recollection. A recollected soul 
is one whose ordinary state of mind is advertence to God. How- 
ever his mind may be occupied, it is always preoccupied with the 
things of God. Now meditation, devoutly practised, provides the 
material for this frame of mind. The scenes of our Savior's 
Passion move across our mental vision; the maxims of His 
Gospel echo through the soul's atmosphere of love; the resolu- 
tions of a good life are registered over and over again; vice 
becomes more odious, and virtue more and more attractive. It 
is like the resonance of sweet chimes which fills the air with 
melody long after the stroke of the bell itself. St. Paul of the 



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THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Cross used often to ask his disciples pleasantly: "Well, how 
are you getting on at home? " After a while they found out what 
the Saint meant — how are you enjoying the presence of God in 
your soul. Meditation in the morning peoples our interior home 
with God and His angels throughout the day. 

No man is fit to deal with other men who has not learned 
how to deal with God in silence and solitude. In private prayer 
God reveals to us His all-sufficiency, and makes good His ex- 
clusive claim upon us, and upon those to whom we are to impart 
Him. God does not want works of zeal except they be done 
with purity of motive by men wholly disinterested, and actuated 
entirely by love for Him. Nor does He will us to save our 
fellowmen to the prejudice of our own spiritual advancement. 

The offering of our thoughts to God is the most difficult 
of all our oblations, because they are the least under our con- 
trol. Once, however, we are able to rule them, even with 
partial discipline, all else is easy in a life of immolation, for 
thought precedes all action. God prompts them by His loving 
inspirations, if we but present our minds before Him. He draws 
us to virtue by irresistible attractions ; this is the favorite work 
of the Holy Ghost. To spend a holy half hour in marshalling our 
mental forces before God, is to obey His injunction to the ancient 
patriarch: "Walk before Me and be perfect" (Gen. xvii. i). 
He that walks interiorly before the eye of God may be trusted 
to walk openly before men, doing good at every step. Would 
that I were as conscious of God as I am of men! In rivalry 
of God men say : "Walk before us and be perfect." God would 
force me into His presence and I will not go. Yet often enough 
when men would rather not have me among them, I force myself 
upon them. 



XXII. 



SPIRITUAL READING. 

Part of Ezechiel's commission as a prophet was to eat the 
written words of his prophecy. "And He said to me: Son of 
man, eat this book, and go speak to the children of Israel. And 
I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that book. And 
He said to me: Son of man thy belly shall eat and thy bowels 
shall be filled. And I did eat it, and it was sweet as honey in my 
mouth. And He said to me: Son of man, go to the house of 
Israel, and thou shalt speak My words to them " (Ezech. iii. 1-4). 
It shall not be otherwise with any energetic servant of God. 
Whether for self-discipline or the saving of his neighbor, the 
Holy Scriptures, and all other devout books, must be eaten and 
drunk and assimilated into our soul's very substance before we 
can rightly play our part in life. As to self-discipline, spiritual 
reading, when it forms part of one's daily routine, has a most 
elevating influence. It so refines our nature that temptations 
are easily rejected, and our passions are effectually tamed. In 
addition to the ordinary feelings of faith, of hope, of love, and 
of sorrow for sin, we gain a deep insight into the principles, the 
reasons, the inspirations, the heroes, of these virtues. 

In some ancient Benedictine monasteries, it was customary 
that each novice at his entrance should present the community 
with one or two books. These were the substitute for a dower 
of money, it would seem ; and for so enlightened a career as that 
of a servitor of holy wisdom, what gift to his brethren could be 
more appropriate than a good book ? The great Abbot Thrithemius 
gave out as a maxim : "The neglect of study and the breakdown 
of discipline ever go hand in hand." Holy study and holy living 
are the weft and woof of the tapestry of life. The history of 

(201) 



202 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Christ and of His saints should be made to us both a perpetual 
joy and a stimulating reproach. What ails us that ten minutes 
reading about Christ and His heroes tires us out, and hours and 
hours of reading inconsequent stuff entertains us highly? Blessed 
is the man who can say that at the day of judgment he will stake 
his fate on the kind of reading that best pleased him during 
his life. 

Thomas a Kempis adopted as a motto: "I sought for rest, 
but found it not, save in a little corner with a little book." What 
he found he gave forth. His own " little book " was the New 
Testament, and reading it in a quiet cell, or within a shady nook 
among the trees, he learned how to write his Imitation. Many an 
hour of heavenly rest has he furnished us by that " little book."* 
A daily custom of good reading is like prayer. It may be left in 
God's hands for a future — often a very near future — of advance- 
ment in virtue. Speaking of so practical a love of holy wisdom, 
the Wise Man says : " Come to her as one that plougheth, and 
soweth, and wait for her good fruits " (Ecclus. vi. 19). 

St. Philip Neri says that perfection is a life of toil. Toiling 
at what tasks? Intellectual and moral tasks of the greatest 
interest, reading and studying and resolving and acting in the 
ways and wisdom of the Most High. His biographer, Bacci, tells 
us that when St. Philip came to the last day of his life, which he 
knew well and had foretold, he spent the hours in saying farewell 
to his closest friends, and in listening to the lives of the saints, es- 
pecially that of St. Bernardine of Siena, " which he caused to 
be read over to him a second time." St. Teresa said: "I am 
always wishing I had time for reading, for I have ever been fond 
of it. But I read very little, for when I take up a book I become 
recollected through the pleasure it gives me, and thus my reading 
is turned into prayer" (Relations i., 7). Herein is a solution of 

*The late George Ripley, in his day one of our foremost literary critics, 
being hard pressed by debt, sold his library. As he saw the books he loved 
so dearly being carted off, he said : " I can now understand how a man would 
feel if he could attend his own funeral." 



SPIRITUAL READING 



203 



the problem of distractions in meditation, as well as of that 
painful vacancy of mind so common to busy mortals when they 
strive to pray. Listen to another master in spiritual lore : " Use 
books when you find your soul weary ; that is to say, read a little 
and then meditate, then again read a little and meditate, till the 
end of your half hour. Mother (St.) Teresa thus acted in the 
beginning, and said that she found it a very good plan for herself. 
And since we are speaking in confidence, I will add that I also 
have tried it myself and found it good for me" (St. Francis de 
Sales, Letters to Persons in Religion, Mackey, Lett. ix.). 

No mental prayer is better, none is easier, than reading 
divine truth in a leisurely, thoughtful frame of mind. Are you 
troubled by distractions in vocal prayer? Substitute the reading 
of the Psalms or of the Book of Job, or of our Savior's sayings 
and doings in the Gospels, or St. Paul's Epistles. The eye is thus 
enlisted in the work of prayer, and the holy questioning of the 
mind is stimulated, double interest is aroused, relieving the monot- 
ony of the recitation of words. The writings of all approved 
authors contain God's teaching, and their reading is at once the 
joy and the guidance of intelligent Catholics. St. Augustine says, 
that when we pray we speak to God, and when we read a religious 
book, God speaks to us. 

"And take unto you the sword of the Spirit, which is 

the word of God " (Eph. vi. 17). The word of God here named 
by the Apostle is primarily the instruction of the pastors of God's 
Church. But it includes the Holy Scriptures, especially those of 
the New Testament, the reading of which is a principal means of 
enlightening our souls unto salvation (2 Tim. iii. 16). Hence our 
j Holy Father, the Pope, has bestowed an indulgence on all who de- 
voutly read the Gospels of Christ, whether in the official Latin ver- 
sion or in any authorized translation. " God's words are deeds " 
is an expression of a saint, referring to words spoken in the soul 
during the higher states of contemplation. But the saying is true 
of God's words in Holy Scripture, spoken as they are through 
His inspired writers, for they work a work upon us so strong, so 



204 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



sweet, so enduring, that their force often equals that of the divine 
locutions of a saint's ecstasy. 

Thus is meditation fed by reading; and the same words 
might be used in the reverse order, for reading is most fruitful of 
virtue when it is fed by meditation. Book in hand does it hap- 
pen that our souls grow warm with sympathy for Christ Crucified, 
or with zeal for His lost sheep : " My heart grew hot within me ; 
and in my meditation a fire shall flame out" (Ps. xxxviii. 4). 
Prayer and the sacraments will lead us to read that we may hold 
fast to the good which they produce; that such good may be 
deepened and increased in our souls. Each virtue as practised has 
a literature which tells of its extension, amplification, develop- 
ment, illustration. By reading we learn its history, praise, de- 
fence ; we are warned against its counterfeits, we are instructed 
in its dogmas. And conversely, whatever good and true thing 
we read, breeds thoughts that are prayers, or that are resolves 
of a practical kind, or pictures for the memory, or discipline for 
unruly tendencies. 

St. Hugh of Grenoble, during whose episcopate and in whose 
diocese St. Bruno founded the Carthusians, wept tears of emotion 
whenever he heard the Scriptures read. And no part of them is 
so fruitful of useful lessons as the history of our Lord's Passion. 
In early days this love of the Scriptures was a prominent trait 
of Christians, and it won many a martyr his crown. In Dio- 
cletian's persecution there was one named Emeritus, who, while 
undergoing torture, was interrogated by the pagan judge : " Have 
you any Scriptures in your house ? " He answered : " I have 
some ; but I also have them in my heart." But the judge repeated 
his question, wishing to get the holy books to burn them publicly ; 
and the martyr never changed his answer: " I have them in my 
heart." And thus he suffered martyrdom, according to the 
prophet's boast to the Most High : " Thy words have I hidden 
in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee " (Ps. cxvii. 11). 

" Philip said to Him : Lord show us the Father, and it is 
enough for us " (John xiv. 8). This petition was the longing of 



SPIRITUAL READING 



205 



a contemplative spirit for the unveiled vision of God. Our Re- 
deemer's answer is the practical method of all prayer, even of the 
highest contemplation : " Philip, he that seeth Me, seeth the 
Father also." Now the pages of the Gospel are as it were the 
Beloved's lattices : " Behold He standeth behind our wall, look- 
ing through the windows, looking through the lattices" (Cant, 
ii. 9). Through those inspired pages He darts the glances of 
His eager love, those fleeting glimpses of the Deity which are all 
that we may hope for now, and which, in very truth, are all that 
we can now endure. 

"If thou shalt seek wisdom as money, and shall dig for her 
as for a treasure, then shalt thou understand the fear of the 
Lord, and shalt find the knowledge of God" (Prov. ii. 4, 5). 
From some writings you dig ore, and then you must smelt it by 
set meditations; that makes the treasure more intimately your 
own. Out of other books you get some ore and some virgin metal 
ready smelted by the authors ; and these are very delightful books. 
Out of others, again, you get money ready made — the ore dug, 
smelted, stamped and delivered to you in current coin of God's 
realm of truth and love. Holy Scripture contains all these 
treasure troves by turns. But one must always do some digging 
— even the minted coin of holy wisdom is hidden treasure to mil- 
lions of careless spirits. Do you want a watchword for Scripture 
reading? It is dig! dig! dig! " If thou shalt seek wisdom," says 
the Sage, " as money, and shalt dig for her as for a treasure, then 
shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and shalt find the 
knowledge of God" (Prov. ii. 4, 5). A fondness for God's 
written word is like the prospector's zeal for finding rich dig- 
gings in the gold-mining regions of the west. 

St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, met St. Ignatius of Antioch 
on his way to Rome to be martyred, and he reverently kissed his 
chains. Afterwards St. Polycarp himself was crowned a martyr. 
So we, by reading of the martyrs, kiss their chains in spirit and 
receive their benediction, and thus we are ourselves made martyrs, 
at least in holy envy. It is a unique honor paid to the lives of the 



2o6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



saints, that from the earliest days of Christianity our forefathers 
publicly read the acts of the martyrs during divine service, espe- 
cially on the anniversaries of their triumph. Apart from Holy 
Scripture this was the only liturgical reading of the early Church. 
In reading such books as Butler's Lives of the Saints, what a 
wealth of virtue is there found on deposit as in a bank, from 
which we draw out and which we spend in every practice of 
faith and hope and love. Annuities and daily doles; food and 
drink ; rich garments ; all the soul's heavenly furniture are there, 
especially the imitation of Christ, which is the bequest of God's 
blessed martyrs. 

One should read the lives of the saints so constantly as to live 
a life apart with them and among them. Our usual environment 
is men like ourselves, of imperfect spirit and abounding in faults. 
But the true Christian should at close intervals be back and forth 
with Christ's discipleship of perfect souls, whereby the virtues of 
our Master and His maxims shall form our familiar atmosphere. 
The saints should be our only heroes. Why read of men's warlike 
deeds, when these champions of the Prince of Peace are given us 
for our models ? " They were stoned, they were cut asunder, 

they were tempted, they .were put to death by the sword 

being in want, distressed, afflicted; of whom the world was not 
worthy" (Heb. xi. 37, 38). Great from statecraft? No, but 
from holy simplicity. Great by the might of their swords ? No, 
but from undaunted endurance of the swords of tyrants for 
God's true faith. 

It is related of St. Ignatius, in the earlier period of his saint- 
hood, that he and two or three devout companions journeyed 
through Spain teaching the little catechism, going always on foot, 
and carrying each his own pack on his back. An ignorant but 
kindly-disposed peasant joined them once, happening to be bound 
in the same direction. Edified by their cheerful and pious ways, 
he now and then induced them to let him carry their packs. 
When they came to an inn he saw them each retire to a quiet 
corner apart, kneel down and meditate for some notable time. 



SPIRITUAL READING 



207 



Struck by their example he did the same. A bystander asked 
him what he was doing. He answered : " I do nothing else but 
this ; I say to God, Lord, these men are saints, and I have been 
glad to be their beast of burden. And what they do, I wish also 
to do." It afterwards turned out that this rude clown became a 
very spiritual man. 

Many a thing in the lives of the saints we cannot under- 
stand. But we can understand at least their virtues of the more 
common kind, and these we can practise because we see them 
done by God's saints. " Be ye imitators of me," says the Apostle, 
" as I also am of Christ " (1 Cor. iv. 16). " Giving thanks, with 
joy, to God the Father, Who hath made us worthy to be par- 
takers of the lot of the saints in light " (Col. i. 12). 

All really devout souls have some stated time for daily 
spiritual reading. Spiritual reading holds rank second only to 
the sacraments and to prayer in every plan of a perfect Chris- 
tian life. Give some part of the day to such reading if it be no 
more than fifteen minutes ; and you will soon experience a won- 
derful deepening of religious motives. Take the time before 
breakfast, for instance, rising just a little earlier for the purpose, 
or some other part of the day that you may claim for private use. 
Let not your first daily mental occupation be the newspapers, 
reading things that you intend to forget, but rather the reading 
of the things of God and of paradise, whose sweetness and glory 
are eternal. 

It is well to keep more than one book for daily use, if only to 
have the advantage of variety : as a portion of the Old Testament 
and a portion of the New ; something from the lives of the saints ; 
a few pages from a book on ascetical doctrine. A daily choice of 
two, even three, from a list embracing half a dozen volumes is a 
good plan ; experience proves that it makes the devout task easier. 

Another help is the custom of making short notes and copy- 
ing out selections, whether for use in prayer or as an aid to mem- 
ory. Remember that when you learned to read you learned to 
write. As these two endowments came together, so should they 



208 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



continue working together. Jot down any thought that particu- 
larly pleases you. Of matter that is not worth writing down read 
little; and this may be said of nearly the entire bulk of the 
daily papers, especially the Sunday editions. What is not worth 
writing down is hardly worth reading.* It is thus that " wise 
men lay up knowledge" (Prov. x. 14). The Son of Sirach says 
that the wise man " will keep the sayings of renowned men " 
(Ecclus. xxxix. 1) — keep them close at hand; write down their 
gems of wisdom ; learn portions of them by heart. 

Acquiring spiritual doctrine is not learning a science, even a 
spiritual one. It is rather like learning how to paint pictures, an 
accomplishment gained by constant repetitions, which gradually 
develop taste and appreciation in equal step with manual dexterity. 
So it is by spiritual taste and appreciation (sapere), rather than 
by understanding, that one benefits by the study of divine liter- 
ature. It is not truth that we seek in this exercise, but the beauty 
of truth. As a novice to the pictorial art copies masterpieces over 
and over again, so does a novice to the art of holy living make 
of his memory a veritable picture gallery, filled with his own 
copies of the events of Christ's life, and of the lives of those of 
His saints for whom he has a special attraction. 

Here are some tests for guidance in choosing a book for 
constant use: I have read this book, and I wish I had it new to 
read over again so as to enjoy the charm of novelty. I wish I 
had read it years ago. I wish I could stand examination in it. 
I wish I had it by heart. This book is too short — yet all too long 
for my keeping its instructions. Here is a book I will give to the 
friend I love best. O what an immense grace to be able to 
write a book like this ! 

" As ideas occurred to him, he wrote them down on slips of paper, and 
when the meeting drew near, after weighing every thought, scrutinizing every 
sentence, and pondering every word, he fused them together into a con- 
nected whole." This was the method of Lincoln as described by the historian 
Rhodes. 



XXIII. 



THE PILLAR OF CLOUD, OR SENSIBLE DEVOTION. 

It was God's primal purpose to take His "delights 

with the children of men"(Prov. vii. 31). Frustrated of His 
purpose by our first parents' abuse of this privilege, He yet grants 
us a divine relish in our exiled state by interior communications 
of love. A great authority affirms that this interior joy is often 
more than enough to compensate for the loss of the earthly 
paradise (Thomas of Jesus, Sufferings of Christ, ix., 7). He 
sometimes reveals His goodness so vividly as to set men on 
fire with longings for Him and Him alone. We do not refer to 
the ecstasies of the saints, but the ordinary jubilations of generous 
souls. The pains of this life are made sweet and its pleasures 
bitter by the constant recurrence of what is known as sensible 
devotion of the more refined sort. The Lord goes before His 
pilgrims " to show the way by day in a pillar of cloud, and by 
night in a pillar of fire; that He might be the guide of their 
journey at both times" (Exod. xiii. 21), so that He is a gift 
of peace in trouble and of thanksgiving in joy. 

St. Justin the Martyr declared to his pagan friends, that he 
learned to believe in Christ from observing the cheerful faces of 
Christian martyrs amid their awful sufferings. He was proficient 
in philosophy, but the truths shining in the pages of Plato were 
eclipsed by the brightness of Christian faith shining in the faces 
of men dying for Christ's sake. It was Justin's privilege to 
feel and exhibit that terrible joy himself, when in due time he 
suffered martyrdom. So had it been with St. Paul : " Gladly, 
therefore, will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ 
may dwell in me. For which cause I please myself in my infirmi- 

(209) 



2IO 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



ties, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, 
for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful " (2 Cor. 
xii. 9, 10). 

This joyous atmosphere of devotion is not to be mistaken 
for mere emotion. It is fervor, it is intensity of purpose, and it is 
enthusiasm. It is that earnestness which made the saints pray 
like the Psalmist : " I cried with my whole heart, hear me, O 
Lord" (Ps. cxviii. 145). On occasions they are almost beside 
themselves — their prayer seems to others a panic and their zeal 
fanaticism. So we must say with St. Teresa, that devotional 
feeling " does not consist in a great sweetness of devotion, but in a 
more fervent wish to please God in all things, in avoiding as much 
as we possibly can, all that would offend Him, and in praying for 
the increase of the glory and honor of His Son and for the growth 
of the Catholic Church" {Interior Castle, IV. Mansions, ch. i.). 

Rest in labor, solace in trouble, hope in despondency — all 
these sweet comforts are granted by a realizing sense of God's 
goodness in His past dealings with our poor race, a feeling ex- 
perienced by the memories and the appreciations set going in 
meditation : " I remembered, O Lord, Thy judgments of old : 
and I was comforted" (Ps. cxviii. 52). Even the material cir- 
cumstances of devout practices become fragrant with holy joy. 
St. Bede, when just about to depart this life, said : " Hold my 
head so that I may have the joy of looking towards my little 
oratory where I used to pray." Thus placed, his dying eyes fixed 
upon the scene of many hours of peaceful prayer, he bade his 
attendants sing the Gloria Patri; when they came to the end 
and chanted the Holy Spirit's name, the saintly monk expired. 

Devotional sweetness has its perils; but this it does: it 
sickens us of the joys of our fleshly appetites. We may go to 
excess in our joyous imaginings about God and heaven, and 
thereby practice spiritual gluttony. But this will at any rate 
tend to cure us of every kind of bodily self-indulgence. Sensible 
devotion is often a form of sentimentalism, but a spiritual form, 
and it cures us of the sentimentalism of human love, and reveals 



1 



THE PILLAR OF CLOUD 2x1 

the delusions of worldly pleasure. It is this interior happiness 
that the Apostle prayed God to grant his converts : " That He 
would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be 
strengthened by His Spirit, with might unto the inward man" 
(Eph. iii. 16). 

The dangers already referred to lie in the human admixture ; 
principally from thinking of the good works we perform (we 
are interpreting St. Teresa, Interior Castle, IV. Mansions, ch. i.), 
and the diligence we give to prayer and meditation. " On con- 
sideration/' says the Saint to her nuns, " we shall find that many 
temporal matters give us the same pleasure — such as unexpectedly 
coming into a large fortune, suddenly meeting with a dearly loved 
friend, or succeeding in any affair that makes a noise in the world. 
Again it would be felt by one who had been told her husband, 
brother or son was dead, and who saw him return to her alive. I 
have seen people weep with such joy, as I have done myself. 
I consider these joys and the ones we feel in religious matters 
to be both natural ones. But the spiritual ones spring from a 
more noble source — they in short begin indeed in ourselves, but 
they end in God. But what I have called spiritual consolations 
are far different. They on the contrary arise from God, and 
our nature feels them and rejoices in them as keenly, and indeed 
far more keenly, than men do in earthly riches." 

Seeking for God here below is, indeed, a pilgrimage of sad- 
ness, for our tendencies are those of a corrupted nature, and our 
journey is beset with many dangers. Yet the same Lord Who 
placed His pillar of fire by night and of cloud by day to guide 
His children in their desert wanderings, never fails to do the 
same with us, so that we may say with the Psalmist : " Thy justi- 
fications were the subject of my song, in the place of my pilgrim- 
age " (Ps. cxviii. 54). 

A graphic picture of a mind quite overflowing with spiritual 
joy is St. Augustine's account of his feelings in the first fervor 
of his conversion: " I could not enjoy enough during those days 
the surpassing joy of musing upon the depths of Thy wisdom in 



212 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



the salvation of the human race. What tears did I shed over the 
hymns and canticles, when the sweet sound of the music of 
Thy Church thrilled my soul. As the music flowed into my 
ears, and Thy truth trickled into my heart, the tide of devotion 
swelled high within me, and the tears ran down and there was 
gladness in those tears " (Confessions, Book IX., ch. vi.). 

This was a sort of holy inebriation, felt by a mighty soul 
as he heard the welcome of the angels on his entrance into that 
heavenly society, God's Church, of which the Lord had said: 
" Behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and the people thereof 
joy" (Is. lxv. 18). What company is so happy as a family of 
pious Catholics, what silence is so sweetly soothing as the 
magnum silentium of a religious community, or the peaceful days 
and nights of a retreat. 

Yet we distinguish between the sensible influence of grace, 
felt in joy, or fervor, or holy awe, and the actual spur to good 
works — between the aroma of the fruit and its nourishing sub- 
stance. God bestows joy very often without our cooperation; 
it is not so with acts of virtue. These need our good will. 
This is a distinction of much importance, seldom duly considered 
or even known, especially by beginners. When both sentiment 
and act are inextricably combined, the ideal condition is reached. 
St. Augustine in that same wonderful book of Confessions, says 
that while he was preparing to be baptized, " I read the Psalms 
with my soul on fire;" and in the same chapter he speaks of 
earnest characters as men who read or speak " with their heart 
in their eyes" (Book IX., ch. iv.). 

A man is famishing of hunger and thirst. Offer him only 
food to eat, even the most delicious, and he perishes with it in 
his mouth. He cannot swallow; the moisture of his body is 
dried up. A few mouthfuls of water, and all is changed ; he now 
eats because he has drunk, and he now can masticate and swallow 
his food. So it is with sensible devotion. It is the moisture of 
our spiritual nourishment. Some amount of it is a necessary help 
to both praying and working for God. Can anyone love without 



THE PILLAR OF CLOUD 



213 



feeling that he loves? Is love mere intellectuality? Is it blank 
volition ? Therefore to pray at times for tenderness of sentiment, 
awesome reverence, exhilaration of courage is as much a duty 
as it is a necessity. There are seasons when " the mind feels as 
if it had never thought of God, nor ever would be able to do so 
in the future. When men speak of Him they seem to be talking 
of someone far away" (St. Teresa, Interior Castle, VI. Man- 
sions, ch. i., 17). 

Shall not one pray for fervor rather even than for virtue, 
when all virtue seems impossible, interest in spiritual things 
or books is vanished, when a sermon is to the soul what sawdust 
is to the mouth, and things that once generated love of God and 
zeal for one's neighbor, now leave the soul cold as ice? 

Sensible devotion is usually, and often exclusively, taken to 
mean the sweetness that is incident to God's service, especially 
in prayer. Yet not sweetness but bitterness is the most precious 
devotional sentiment, the overflowing of our emotional nature 
during moments of regret for sin — into tears and sighs, horror 
and pain. Sensible bitterness of contrition is, for most of our 
moods, a far higher gift of God than the sensible sweetness of 
affection towards Hirn. The Council of Trent places the essence 
of effectual repentance in " pain of soul and detestation of past 
sin" (sess. xiv., ch. iv.), surely a bitter state of mind, and yet 
the most desirable of all devotional feelings. The gladness of 
holy faith and hope and love let us receive with a welcome ; the 
sadness of grief for sin let us receive with a double welcome. 
A shade of suspicion hangs over all joy in this life, even religious 
joy, for we are in a state of banishment and atonement. That 
shade vanishes and joy becomes immune from suspicion, only 
when its happy thrills are received with reserve, and we welcome 
it with the sign of the cross. " My brethren," exclaims the 
Apostle, " count it all joy when you shall fall into divers tempta- 
tions " (James i. 2). What a strange joy is this! Surely we 
must readjust our views of joy and sorrow. Surely it takes a 
stalwart character to be a true Christian. 



214 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Make hay while the sun shines — a maxim whose wisdom is 
best known in a rainy climate. So with souls of a gloomy tem- 
perament, or those whose lives are saddened by constant suffer- 
ing. These often outstrip their sunnier brethren in the race of 
perfection, because adversity is a supreme test of friendship 
whether for God or man. "A friend shall not be known in 
prosperity" (Ecclus. xii. 8). In aridity we show God our 
truest love, particularly if we continue faithful to our regular 
devotional exercises. 

To change the figure : In midsummer we come upon beds of 
streams dry and rocky; these are not fed by springs but by the 
rain. They are torrents amid downpouring rain, and furnish 
water when w r ater is plenty without them. So of a certain sort 
of devotional feeling — its source is not the perennial spring of 
religious principle but the showers, perhaps thunderstorms, of 
religious emotionalism. 

All sensible sweetness in prayer, beyond merely appreciative 
feelings, is to be accepted with calmness, enjoyed with moderation, 
and surrendered with gladness. And if it roll and surge in the 
heart with overmastering force, it is even to be suspected of 
diabolical origin. Sensible devotion should be treated with that 
rational hospitality, which welcomes the coming, and speeds the 
parting guest. It is true that it always makes prayer easier. But 
does it make virtue easier ? After prayer is over and done, does 
the force of love reach higher results as a consequence of devout 
feelings? As a rule it does not. One comes from semi-ecstasy 
in prayer and presently loses control of his temper — he is quite 
the same man as before. He meditates on our dying Savior's 
thirst with tearful sympathy, and at the next meal he is powerless 
to restrain his appetite for dainties — just as before. Plain reas- 
oning in meditation with incandescent fervor, is a better ideal than 
the pulsations of a high spiritual temperature, which sometimes 
knock out of one's head the simple duty of the hour. "And 
as soon as she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for 
joy, but running in she told that Peter stood before the gate " 



THE PILLAR OF CLOUD 



215 



(Acts xii. 14). Thus did joy hinder the damsel Rhode from 
duty's task, as it has hindered not a few others ever since. 

Magdalen, on the contrary, saw angels at the sepulchre, 
a vision of heavenly beauty, beings whose conversation was a 
divine rapture; but she did not delay with them, but ran off to 
Peter and John crying out : " They have taken away the Lord 
out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid 
Him " (John xx. 2). Jesus and not angels was her quest. So in 
prayer, sweetness of feeling is not our quest, but solid conviction 
of duty, honest payment of allegiance to God and affection to 
men, strong resolves of a practical kind: not angels but God, 
not joy but virtue. 

One day St. Teresa, glowing with divine love, not knowing 
how to give expression to her feelings, snatched up a broom and 
began sweeping. Thus does the wisdom of a saint chasten the 
joys of heavenly visitations with earthly tasks of humility. 

The consolations of a devout life should not savor of ordinary 
feelings of self-content. We seek even in pious exercises the com- 
forts of mind craved by unregenerate nature. " Thou hast found 
honey, eat what is sufficient for thee, lest being glutted therewith 
thou vomit it up " (Prov. xxv. 16). In childhood we prefer the 
sweet things of a meal to the substantial food. Now it happens 
that in the spiritual life we, for the most part, continue to be 
children to the end — even unto old age we glut ourselves with 
the sweetness of prayerful feelings, instead of nourishing our 
souls with the strong but tasteless food of kindness, patience, 
and humility. Sensible, practical resolves for the day's work and 
suffering, dependent wholly on the deep flowing realizations of 
divine things, let these be our aim. As to sensible devotion the 
question ever demands answer: Are these feelings the fruit of 
religious conviction, or of religious enthusiasm? Are we de- 
pending on taste, or on reason and grace? Too often we fall 
under the Psalmist's admonition : " In the evening weeping 
shall have place, and in the morning gladness. And in my abun- 
dance I said: I shall never be moved " (Ps. xxix. 6, 7). 



2l6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Not seldom the life of a devout soul is a succession of fat 
days and lean days, spiritual gluttony and spiritual starvation, 
excessive sadness alternating with extravagant joy. St. Philip 
Neri taught that spiritual despondency has no other source than 
pride, and he knew men's hearts well. He distinguished three 
sorts of vainglory in a religious man : " The first he called the 
mistress, which is when vainglory arises in the mind beforehand, 
and is the motive and seed of the action. The second he called 
the companion; this is when a man does not perform an action 
for the sake of vainglory, but feels a complacency in doing it. The 
third he called the slave ; and this is when vainglory rises in the 
performance of a good deed, and is put down the moment it rises. 
And he used to add : 'Take care at least that it be not mistress ; 
and though as a companion it does not take away the merit of a 
good action, yet perfection consists in having it a slave !' Lastly, 
he used to quote St. Bernard, that to arrive at the perfection of 
humility, four things are necessary— to despise the world, to 
despise no person, to despise self, to despise being despised by 
others" (Bacci, English Edition). 

God sometimes takes His consolations away from us, but 
His mercy ever remains. " For a small moment have I for- 
saken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a mo- 
ment of indignation have I hid My face a little while from thee, 
but with everlasting kindness have I had mercy on thee" (Is. 
liv. 7, 8). The rainbow is to be admired as a beautiful token of 
God's love, rather than worshipped as something god-like. 

We readily forget that this life is a vale of tears, and its 
brightness, not that of an ever unclouded sky, but rather the 
occasional gleams of sunshine between the showers of an in- 
curably bad climate. " The heaven of heavens is the Lord's : 
but the earth He hath given to the children of men " (Ps. cxiii. 
16). Let us who are of the earth be content with the earth ; it is t 
God's gift and it is good. Heaven with God will be ours in due 
time; the earth with God is our present destiny. Later on we 
shall rejoice as the angels do, but now we are but men and our 



THE PILLAR OF CLOUD 



217 



joy is of the earth, that of wayfarers in a land of exile, a joy 
of patience, a joy even of tears. But how holy is our sorrow 
and how powerful an instrument of God's providence, since it 
uncovers the deeper springs of eternal joy. Therefore " is any 
of you sad? Let him pray. Is he cheerful in mind? Let him 
sing " (James v. 13). 

God sends upon your soul the south wind and sunshine and 
warmth, with the flowers and fruits of devotional feelings. 
Praise Him with joy and thank Him with alleluias. But the same 
God sends the chill of winter, scanty sunlight, weeping skies. 
Praise Him with fear and thank Him with sadness. " Cold 
cometh out of the north, and to God praise with fear" (Job 
xxxvii. 22) . Whatever changes He causes in the weather with- 
out or our feelings within, there is no change in Himself. He is 
always equally worthy of love, sometimes joyful love, sometimes 
fearful — always love with thanksgiving. Praise God for a cold 
heart, for if it means a dreary winter it will be followed by a 
genial summer. 

Beethoven composed several of his greatest pieces long after 
total deafness had rendered him incapable of hearing a single 
note of music. His soul was so sensitive to musical beauty, 
and so ready and sure in its choice of harmonies, that the dim 
memory of sound was sufficient guidance to his genius. So 
should our faith be ready and sure in trusting God in dark days ; 
and in brighter times we should be not unprepared for the inevit- 
able return of the clouds. " In the day of good things be not un- 
mindful of evils: and in the day of evils be not unmindful of 
good things" (Ecclus. xi. 27). 

What do farmers do in time of drought? They pray for 
rain; but they are not content with that. In the arid sections 
of America what is called dry farming has been extensively tried 
and with wonderful success in utilizing a rate of rainfall too little 
for a crop with ordinary cultivation; but it is ample moisture 
for one with the new method. According to this the farmer 
plows deeper, plows oftener, harrows oftener, pulverizes the soil 



2l8 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



to cover up the deeper layers against evaporation. It costs more 
money than the old way, but it brings better harvests, not seldom 
forty bushels of wheat to the acre. So in time of spiritual 
drought (aridity is an established name for the lack of sensible 
feeling in religion) one goes deeper into God for his motives, he 
has a keener anxiety about petty faults, yea, even the most trifling, 
and he pulverizes vainglory. 

Father de Andreis, a Vincentian missionary in the Western 
States early in the last century (for whose canonization prepara- 
tions are now being made), left the following memorandum: " I 
beg the divine goodness to give me instead of sensible sweetness 
of devotion, an increase of light, so that I may know what I 
should do, and of strength to execute God's will always in view 
of Himself alone" {Life, ch. x.). Those who complain of dis- 
tractions in prayer would do well to try the making of such 
acts of detachment and humility as a mode of relief, the easiest 
method of deep spiritual plowing and the most efficacious. A man 
will spend hour upon hour steadfastly attentive to thoughts about 
someone who has insulted him. His quis, quid, ubi, quare, quo- 
modo, quando — who is he, what right had he, how cunningly he 
chose his time and place to down me — all fully developed and 
illustrated, intensified with colloquies, sharp pointed with resolu- 
tions ; all done without an effort. Why can he not give as much 
attention to Jesus Crucified? 

Meanwhile it is a comfort to know that blameless indevotion 
is the equivalent of joyful devotion. " If," says St. Teresa, " you 
are not to blame for dryness of mind in prayer, the Lord is just; 
what He refuses you in one way His majesty will give you in 
another, as He knows how " {Interior Castle, III. Mansions, 
ch. ii.). The Lord's exchanges are always balanced in our favor. 
In place of fleeting consolations He gives enduring virtue. 

Shall we pray for sensible devotion? Most assuredly yes. 
It enables us to meditate oftener and longer, to recall our good 
purposes in an atmosphere of joy. " Restore unto me the joy 
of Thy salvation, and strengthen me with a perfect spirit" 



THE PILLAR OF CLOUD 219 



(Ps. 1. 14). But shall we petition for ecstasies in prayer? Most 
assuredly no. Yet the saints bid us ask of God some humble 
share of the higher graces of contemplation just as we ask for 
heaven itself. Ejaculatory prayer has here a perpetual utility. 
St. Bernard says of St. Malachy that his heart was like a bow 
always bent, and continually shooting short prayers up to heaven. 
Let us bear in mind the Lord's teaching, that though importunity 
plagues men it pleases God (Luke xi. 7). 

Our Lord says in the Apocalypse : " Behold I stand at the 
gate and knock. If any man shall hear My voice, and open to 
Me the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and 
he with Me" (Apoc. iii. 20). Aye, Lord — I can answer — I bid 
Thee come in; but the door of my heart I cannot open, for it is 
locked on the outside by my carnal nature. Thou alone hast the 
key — unlock my heart from the outside, enter in and we shall feast 
together, and " let my soul be filled as with marrow and fatness, 
and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips" (Ps. lxii. 6). 

A lesson from the resurrection morn. Magdalen persevered 
seeking Jesus, though the empty tomb baffled her. She sought 
Him dead and found Him living because she continued resolutely 
on in her search. What a burst of light and love when at last 
He said: "Mary!" and she answered, "Rabboni! (which is to 
say, Master) " (John xx. 16). So we, if we are as persistent 
in seeking Him in gloom as in sunshine, shall finally find Him. 
Mostly Jesus is disguised in one form or other because it is in 
faithful seeking that our love is tested by faith and strengthened 
by hope. Like Mary, we too shall seek Him dead and find Him 
living; indeed there is no other kind of seeking and finding Jesus. 
And it is from that kind of meeting that we receive our mission 
for leading others to Jesus: " Go, tell My disciples," He said to 
Mary. 

This is true, also, of our Lord's seeking after us, for we are 
constantly avoiding and evading Him. Therefore does St. Au- 
gustine say: " If God sought me when I fled from Him, how can 
He fly from me when I seek Him ? " 



220 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



We have not touched upon the mysterious desolation of 
spirit experienced by the saints, which generates what is known 
as disinterested love of God. To love God, hell or no hell, heaven 
or no heaven— let none of us venture on this perilous and heroic 
spirituality, nor so much as ask for such a trial. Strictly dis- 
interested love is not compatible with truth, nor even in a modified 
form is it any thing to be longer after. A certain class of souls 
experience it as a fiery visitation of the Holy Spirit, souls far 
above our own class. 

Yet in a devout fancy we can profit by certain yearnings after 
God, mentally prescinding though not totally ignoring heaven or 
hell as motives of our love. Bishop Camus tells us that St. 
Francis de Sales was fond of quoting the following incident 
from Joinville's Life of St. Louis. A certain holy woman pre- 
sented herself before one of the king's chaplains, bearing in one 
hand a lighted torch, and in the other a pitcher of water filled to 
the brim. "What are you going to do ? " she was asked. And 
she answered : "With this torch I am going to burn up Paradise, 
and with this water I am going to put out the fire of hell, in order 
that henceforth God may be served with disinterested love." St. 
Francis then explained that such love was so noble that it served 
God from no mercenary spirit; not from fear of punishment 
or hope of reward. He added that he wished that story to be told 
on all possible occasions {Spirit of St. Francis de Sales, p. 64). 



XXIV. 



THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. 

The power of the saints with God is that familiar right of 
ownership which belongs to children in their father's house. Now 
this right is also ours. If they are children at home, we are 
children homeward bound. The common ownership of all of 
God's good things is the bond of our family union, and it offers 
our heavenly brethren the ever-recurring opportunity of be- 
stowing favors upon us. Their virtues are as truly gifts to them 
from our common Father as our necessities are our unimpeachable 
credentials for demanding our share — our share of their spirit- 
ual wealth and also of loving union with themselves. "All things 
are yours," says the Apostle to us, ' 'whether it be Paul or Apollos 
or Cephas, or the world, or life or death, or things present or 
things to come; for all are yours, and you are Christ's and 
Christ is God's " (i Cor. iii. 22, 23). What a charter of heavenly 
ownership! What a holy service does it not engender in our 
souls! How high a prerogative is the Christian's right to the 
intercession of the saints ! 

And now let us consider our relation to the greatest of the 
Saints, and the Queen of the angels, the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
When God became man He might have sprung into our life full 
grown. But it pleased Him to do infinitely better. For, as His 
greatest act of love towards us is His Incarnation, so has He in- 
separably joined it to our holiest human relationship, that of 
mother and child. He would be " made of a woman " (Gal. iv. 4), 
and God and a woman be Child and a Mother. Thus the immense 
grandeur of God's gift of His Only-begotten Son is sweetened 
with an equally vast gentleness and tenderness in the person of 
His Mother, who thereby becomes the great Mother of all man- 
kind. She holds a separate place of holiness. She is high above 

(221) 



222 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



all saints in God's plan of our salvation, in time and eternity. The 
most Holy Trinity endowed her with the graces needed to make 
her the sole essential cooperator on the part of men in the ex- 
tension of the Godhead among us. Her saving love is her 
Mother's love of God made man. She is fitted, if any created 
being could be fitted, to be natural Mother of the Word incarnate, 
and thereby Mother of all His brethren: loving Mother and 
mighty advocate of all men with her Son. As far as any human 
being could, she is made worthy to be obeyed by Almighty 
God Himself, as the God-man. His Mother is the principal 
and, we may say, the only perfect counsellor and confidant of the 
Sovereign Wisdom in His allotted task of enlightening and saving 
our souls. Mary is finally the perfect representative of each and 
all of us sinners in the atonement that God demands of us on 
Calvary, in union with her crucified Son. 

We know that true friendship with any true Christian is 
at once a token and a means of eternal salvation. It is rarely 
inefficacious. And two men of no natural kinship, but of close 
friendship, are usually spoken of as being " like two brothers," 
for brother and sister naturally enjoy a unitive love. But no 
love compares with that generated by the union between mother 
and child. The relation between mother and child is enriched 
by the Creator with life's best and tenderest and most overmaster- 
ing affection. Now this was, and perpetually is, to be the rela- 
tion of the infinite God with our human nature through His 
Mother, the ever-blessed recipient of His heart's outflowing 
tenderness, our beloved Mistress and Queen, Mary of Nazareth 
and of Calvary. 

It is an article of faith that, in the vast multitude of mankind, 
one is redeemed before she is lost, one and only one, Mary the 
Mother of the Redeemer Himself. " This holy Council," these 
are the words of the Fathers of Trent, " has no intention in the 
decree about original sin to include the blessed and immaculate 
Virgin Mary, the Mother of God." And in another place they 
affirm that she was free from all sin by a special divine privilege, 



THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY 223 



both mortal sin and venial, and that this privilege was hers 
through her entire life (Con. Trid. De Justif., can. xxiii., and 
De Pec, Orig. 5). Finally in 1854 the Vicar of Christ, amid one 
of the most splendid solemnities of modern times, made Mary's 
Immaculate Conception more plainly understood, and most em- 
phatically defined it an article of Catholic faith. The sun of her 
spirituality is the best and most abundant bestowal of the grace 
of the Incarnation of God's Son. Her spirit is filled with the 
effects of that goodness which " so loved the world as to give His 
Only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, may not 
perish, but may have life everlasting" (John iii. 16). Her im- 
maculate motherhood is taken up by this divine stream of sal- 
vation, and being the purest type of its cleansing, she becomes 
the leading personality in the whole discipleship of Jesus for dis- 
tributing its superabundant graces. Mary is all that she is for 
man's salvation. St. Paul teaches that we are by nature " children 
of wrath" (Eph. ii. 3). But this could never be true of one 
destined to be Mother of One Who is divine compassion incarnate. 

Usually it is the child that is sanctified by the mother, whose 
maternal influence for good is well nigh irresistible. But in 
Mary's case the reverse is found. Mary is redeemed by her Son, 
with a forethought of infinite love, saving her immaculate from 
Adam's sin from the first moment of her existence, flooding 
her soul with boundless waves of light, and of virtue and of 
grace, only to continue in ever-increasing plentitude each mo- 
ment of her existence. And be it remembered that all this 
is in straight line with Christ's divine mission, which is our 
sanctification. His Mother is ours for our salvation. "All things 
are yours," exclaims the Apostle to us, "and you are Christ's 
and Christ is God's " (1 Cor. iii. 22, 23). Aye, even His heavenly 
Father is ours, and that blessed being who is His earthly Mother, 
shall not she be ours ? After we have received from heaven the 
goodness of the Son, and " the charity of the Father and the 
communication of the Holy Spirit" (2 Cor. xiii. 13), what of 
earth's best and noblest shall we not receive? "He that spared 



224 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



not even His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how hath 
He not also, with Him, given us all things?" (Rom. viii. 22), 
especially His masterpiece of love, His Mother. 

But might we not better say that God the Father has given us 
to Mary? As she is endowed with the amazing privilege of au- 
thority over His divine Son, shall she have none over us, poor, 
lowly mortals, no right to command, no claim to entreat, and to 
counsel and to reprove? Little it would seem was the room for 
exercising her authority over Jesus, since His Godhead ruled her 
own every thought. Yet she claimed Him in the Temple, and He 
meekly went home with her, and " was subject to her at Naza- 
reth " (Luke ii. 51). Shall she not assert the same authority 
over me? Am I not a child of Mary, since I am a brother of 
her Son, being one of the " many brethren," among whom " He is 
the firstborn?" (Rom. viii. 29.) She, in whose motherly bosom 
there is room for divine maternity, shall not have less than 
the universality of human motherhood. She shall welcome to 
deepest and truest love every child of that God Whose Only- 
begotten Son calls her Mother — welcome us and insist on having 
us. This thy motherhood, O Mary, I humbly venerate. It is 
a fitting accompaniment of the divine gift of thy Son's Incarna- 
tion. I implore thee to witness my sincerity when I say to thee 
and proclaim to the whole world, that I will do thy bidding and 
be subject to thee in all things, as did thy Son Jesus, trusting that 
thou wilt, with a mother's affection, obtain for me the graces 
necessary to make this promise an efficacious one unto salvation. 

To set forth the power of Mary, Holy Church makes use of 
God's words to Satan : " I will put enmities between thee and the 
woman, and thy seed and her seed ; and she shall crush thy head " 
(Gen. iii. 15). This is God's promise of a most blessed helper 
to us in temptation, the mighty woman that is His Son's Mother. 
And great is our need of her. Satan never ceases to lay his 
snares. He insinuates himself everywhere. He strives, at first, 
to seduce us totally; failing in that he would corrupt the 
good that we do by suggesting motives. We are not safe 



THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY 225 



from him even in our sleep, of whose phantoms he is often the 
author. No hour of strenuous labor but he would claim a share 
of it for turbulence, for dissensions among brethren. He " trans- 
forms himself into an angel of light" (2 Cor. xi. 14), that he 
may delude the very elect of God by a false show of heavenly 
favors. He is present amid our thoughts without our knowing 
how he got there, mingling dangerous imaginations with our 
noblest aspirations. His hatred and envy against us is due to 
his despair at beholding us poor creatures enjoying that divine 
friendship which he so basely betrayed, and has lost forever. 
O God, our Savior, what shall be our refuge and our hope in the 
unequal struggle with this prince of darkness ? It is Thy Mother, 
O my God, who by Thy appointment is our champion. Her power 
is ten thousand times as great as Satan's. She does not so much 
follow him in his terrible warfare against us, as she anticipates 
and thwarts his machinations beforehand. She does not lift hand 
or speak words, it is enough that she treads him under her 
virginal foot, despises his power, crushes his venomous head, 
expels him from our souls. 

Witness the universal trust of God's servants in Mary's aid, 
and their invariable relief from temptation when they seek her 
intercession. It is her sweet fragrant breath that disinfects our 
souls from the plague taint of lust. It is her noble generous 
nature that communicates to us God's gift of holy fear in our 
prouder moments, that instills into our deepest springs of con- 
sciousness true motives from on high, when the stream of our 
well doing is muddied by the demon's suggestions of self-interest 
or of vainglory. The holiness and dignity of Mary, the Mother of 
Jesus, therefore ranks her among all creatures next to Jesus 
Himself. She is especially the type of all strictly human purity, 
natural and supernatural, ever virgin, virgin Mother, Queen of 
virgins, Spouse of the Holy Spirit. Not the faintest suggestion 
of uncleanness ever reached her. The sovereign purity possible 
in us mortals is hers. She is every man's virginal Sister and 
Mother to counsel and guide and refine — this masterpiece of holy 



226 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



chastity. She is every woman's most confidential adviser in 
the problems of good and evil company, especially in their 
hours of relaxation. She is first witness of every Christian 
marriage. She is presiding spirit in every Christian home. Every 
victory over impurity is won by her intercession. She is enrolled 
by Holy Church in every sisterhood. Saints in their visions have 
seen her, joining with the nuns in chanting the divine office 
radiantly clad in their own habit. St. Teresa, when made superior 
over a seditious community, placed a statue of Mary in the place 
of honor, and exclaimed, " Behold your Prioress, " and imme- 
diately the sweetness of peace was diffused everywhere, breathed 
out of the immaculate heart of the Mother of God. 

What was God's original purpose but that He should make 
man His own by His love? He began with His Mother. God 
would have our human nature wholly yielded up to Him in love. 
How could this be better begun than by the love of a human 
mother for Him as her Son. And what nobler type of love could 
we desire to represent our love for God than that of one of our 
women, so sanctified and elevated in soul and body, as to be fitted 
(if such a thing could be) to be Mother of the God Incarnate. 
"God is wonderful in His saints" (Ps. lxvii. 36) affirms the 
prophet, and in which of them so wonderful as in the best loved 
of all, His own Mother? And on our part, our heirship unto 
God is to be made "worthy to be partakers of the lot of the 
saints in light " (Col. i. 12). Now to whom among God's saints 
shall be allotted the brightest light to share with us, in God's 
holy faith, and the sweetest and strongest love to impart to us in 
the keeping of God's holy law, if not to her of whom it is written, 
" and the angel being come in said unto her : Hail full of grace 

the Lord is with thee ; blessed art thou among women The 

Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High 
shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy [One] 
that shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God " 
(Luke i. 28-35). 

When trials afflict us, we are led by Holy Church to the 



THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY 227 



cross of Christ, and like the tender Mother she is, the Church 
persuades us little by little, by her multiform influences, of that 
most marvelous of all verities, namely, that the King of immortal 
glory will acknowledge none for His subjects but crucified men. 
There on Calvary do we find our souls under a charm of mingled 
sweetness and pain, both so extreme as to overwhelm us. The 
immense pity of Jesus for sinners, the immense dullness of sin- 
ners, and their foul ingratitude, these two awful facts, the circuit 
of whose vastness embraces all heaven and earth, now begin to 
enthrall our attention, to strain our power of mental endurance. 
In the after effects we find that the Crucifixion of the Son of God 
becomes the absorbent (as if it were some divine medicinal band- 
age wrapped about our wounded spirits) of our weakness of 
character: the cross is the medicine of a languishing world. 
Calvary is the only cure of cowardice. And it is furthermore 
the spur of that superhuman zeal which is a peculiar trait of 
Catholic holiness. One's soul has as many tongues to proclaim the 
loveliness of Jesus Crucified as its Beloved has bleeding wounds, 
and it would herald the Crucified to all nations and for all 
ages with tones rivalling that " trumpet of God " (Thess. iv. 15), 
which shall finally assemble all mankind to the great judgment. 
Calvary becomes to the true Christian the true centre of the 
whole universe. Its lessons are the only wisdom of God. We 
join the Apostle in saying that our sum total of knowledge is 
fully written down in the one sign that looms over Calvary, 
that university of heaven's learning. Under this spell our life 
gradually so melts and moulds its forces that we are changed into 
exhibits of crosses and deaths, pains and glories, loves and sacri- 
fices for God's honor and men's salvation: " I judged not myself 
to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and Him Cru- 
cified " (1 Cor. ii. 2), exclaims one who experienced this trans- 
formation. 

But even the Apostle's entire transfiguration with this painful 
glory pales into a secondary light when associated with that 
of the Mother of Jesus Crucified. For it is a law of God that 



228 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



whosoever loves Jesus best shall suffer most. The hierarchy 
of merit is graded by love and by suffering. Motherly love and 
motherly sorrow can hold no second place in the distribution of 
Calvary's immortal prizes. The Mother of Jesus shall know 
better than all His brethren taken together what it means to re- 
deem mankind. To her shall be spoken the heavenliest words at 
the command even of the Word made Flesh. And those words 
are the ones known in their entire meaning only by wounded 
hearts that have been wholly healed by the Crucified. "Woman, 
behold thy Son " (John xix. 26). She stood by Him to the last. 
She loved Him best, she must and she would suffer with Him most 
intensely. And, therefore, in the person of John, the disciple 
whom Jesus loved, she must receive from her Son the whole 
human race into her heart. As a mother embraces her children, so 
must Mary take to her bosom all mankind. Therefore, further- 
more, must each of us enter into that stainless heart, as a sick 
child into the enfolding arms of his all-pitying mother. To 
this embrace does Jesus Crucified bid us enter : " Behold thy 
Mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own " 
{John xix. 27). Thus did our divine Redeemer establish our 
sonship with Mary as the Mother of Sorrows. 

The Catholic devotion to the Mother of Jesus was divinely in- 
stituted on Calvary as part of the process of our salvation. There 
did Jesus reward the best of His lovers with the fullest share of 
His sufferings. The Mother of the Redeemer, is it not fitting 
that she should be the Mother of the redeemed ? Did not Simeon, 
a man so filled by the Holy Ghost that he was placed at the door 
of God's temple fitly to welcome Mary and Joseph entering there, 
to present the divine Child to His Father's service, did not Simeon 
speak for God when he joined her to the Crucified by his proph- 
ecy : " Behold this Child is set for the fall and for the resurrec- 
tion of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted. 
And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts, 
thoughts may be revealed" (Luke ii. 34-35). She had suffered 
no pangs of childbirth when she gave Flim forth from her sacred 



THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY 229 



womb to the Father, and presented Him for the adoration of 
Joseph and the Christmas angels at Bethlehem. But on Calvary 
the agonies of the new birth of all mankind were granted her in 
\ overflowing abundance. She offered Him again to His Father 
• by her inalienable right as His Mother. None of us but has some 
little share of that privilege, for He is ours, He is our atoning 
sacrifice. Was it not said of Him, " Christ our Pasch is sacri- 
ficed ?" (1 Cor. v. 7.) But which of us will deny the primeval 
and supreme right of His Mother to present Jesus Crucified to 
His Father as the price of our redemption? 

The Apostle spoke true when he called his converts his chil- 
dren, and compared his labors for their salvation to the pains 
of maternity : " My little children, of whom I am in labor again, 
until Christ be formed in you" (Gal. iv. 19). Between figures 
of speech and actual realities, how essential the difference. Be- 
tween the Apostle's high right over the souls of his disciples, 
and the incommunicable dignity of the one who bore the Redeemer 
in her womb, and brought Him forth into our life, whose very soul 
was struck and pierced, and ravaged and tortured by His dying 
agonies ; between an Apostle of Christ, and Christ's Mother, how 
vast, how unspeakable a difference. Thus does Mary offer Jesus 
Crucified to His Father, whilst at the same time she offers her- 
self the noblest trophy of His redeeming love. In this she is 
the type of the Church of Christ, which offers all her children, 
together with herself, to God in union with Christ, in the daily 
sacrifice of the Eucharist. Well does the Church bid us bless her 
unto "all generations" (Luke i. 48), in the invocations after 
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament: "Blessed be the great 
Mother of God, Mary most holy." The colloquy of Jesus and His 
Mother, and St. John on Calvary, is the adoption of all our race 
into the Holy Family of Nazareth, and the offering of the re- 
deemed to God in union with the oblation of Calvary. 

Our love for her is approved with the seal of the most 
precious Blood. The words of Jesus to Mary and John were a 
most conspicuous part of the drama of Redemption. A 



230 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



special providence called Mary to stand at the foot of 
the cross of Christ, and placed His favorite disciple 
at her side. Both are our representatives, as well as His 
own, the Mother being our foremost gift to heaven, our nature's 
perfect glory, and at the same time a type of all that God can 
do for us by a purely human instrumentality. She has the 
fullest possible allotment of Christ's own characteristic grace, 
namely, pitiful love for sinners. And John is a disciple and an 
Apostle, predestined to that singular grace and power which shall 
make him an official witness of Christ, one of those to whom 
He shall say before His Ascension into heaven: "You shall 
receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you, and you 
shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in 
Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the earth " (Acts 
i. 8). When the Holy Ghost shall come, Mary and John shall 
sit together in the cenacle to receive the fiery gift, as now they 
stand together gazing tearfully upon the death throes of Him 
Who shall bestow the life-giving Spirit. The death of Jesus was 
to John, and all to whom John is given as an Apostle, the be- 
ginning of love for Mary, which can be naught else than the 
perfect love of children for their mother. Whatsoever he re- 
ceived that must he give with overflowing measure, never reckon- 
ing worthiness or unworthiness, but only willingness on the part 
of the recipient. Our Lord had enforced this upon him, and all 
his fellow Apostles, when He said to them : " Freely have you 
received, freely give " (Matt. x. 8). 

And what would be Mary's feelings? A sudden expansion 
into our limitless humanity of her motherly yearning for her 
Son Jesus. "Woman behold thy Son " forever rings in her ears, 
and melts her heart to this day as her vision sweeps the nations 
in search of sinners. Ask Mary, "Who is thy Son?" She 
answers, " The Crucified One is my Son, and so are all men my 
sons and daughters, for His Sonship to me is the means He 
chose of extending His salvation to all." In every single one of 
us Mary sees Him, and feels that she is His foremost minister 



THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY 



in effecting in us the salvation He won upon the cross. As Jesus 
is for sinners a Brother to redeem, so is Mary a Mother to caress 
and to attract sinners, and finally to place them in her 
Son's arms. All that is meant (if we could dream of under- 
standing all its meaning) by her love for her Son is now relatively 
to be applied in our favor. The love of Jesus shall shine glor- 
iously in the exercise of His Mother's prerogatives. The bride 
in the Canticles is Mary, so commentators tell us, and she is made 
by the inspired writer thus to speak of her divine Spouse in the 
early obscure searching of her interior life : " Have you seen Him 
Whom my soul loveth? When I had a little passed by them, 
I found Him Whom my soul loveth ; I held Him, and I will not 
let Him go" (Cant. iii. 3, 4). In her motherly anxiety 
(if we dare speak of the emotions of one in heaven's highest 
glory) she looks far, searches out, and at last finds those whom 
her soul for Jesus' sake loveth, and she brings them home to Him. 

Sometimes a poor penitent is overwhelmed with the memory 
of his former sinfulness. Some especially black wickedness, or 
some foul ingratitude of relapse into sin, throws a terror over 
him like Satan's net. He fears the very thought of God, and his 
fear is of that awful kind that is barren of hope. Then it is, 
O how great, a comfort to be trained from childhood to treat the 
gentle and yet powerful Mary as a representative of God, and 
one without any duty of justice, nay with no sense or feeling, 
towards a sinner except pity — a friend as close to God as a 
mother to her son, and knit to the sinner himself in the bonds of a 
mother's love. " My soul," she sang in the house of Zachary 
and Elizabeth, " doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath 
rejoiced in God my Savior" (Luke i. 46, 47). Now let us ask, 
who ever partook in God's rejoicing in saving sinners as fully as 
she who is the Savior's Mother and the sinner's Mother? And 
for those, too, who are striving to be noble and generous in their 
effort for Christian perfection, Mary immaculate has ever been 
the strongest advocate with Him, Whose glory is their whole aim 
and purpose. 



XXV. 



HUMBLED AND EXALTED. 

The standard definition of humility is a knowledge of self as 
true as God's. We obtain it by such a prayer as this : " O God, 
teach me the truth about myself." This prayer is made easily in 
early days, but in later life one finds a bitter purgatory in its 
granting, and exclaims: "O God, how little did I know myself 
till Thou didst discover me to myself by letting me run wild." 
The end is that " the just is the first accuser of himself " 
(Prov. xviii. 17). 

Acquired humility is thus described by St. Bernard : " To 
despise the world ; to despise no man ; to despise self ; to de- 
spise being despised by others — Spernere mundum; spernere 
nullum; spernere seipsum; spernere se sperm!' Equally psycho- 
logical is another definition by the same Saint : " Humility is 
knowledge of our own defectiveness, of which we are glad in 
Christ Jesus because it is true knowledge, and because it opens 
wide opportunities to honor God and be submissive to our neigh- 
bor. No advance in virtue is possible till one knows his faults, 
and knows them as God knows them." Two things minister this 
boon. One is the secret admonitions of the Holy Ghost in prayer. 
The other is the same Holy Ghost using the censure of friends 
and the vindictiveness of enemies. Cherish devoutly the self- 
condemnations of your better states of prayer. Consider favor- 
ably what an enemy says of you, especially a well-meaning man. 
Suspect what a friend says ; it is rose-colored by his love. Our 
humility thus simplifies the relationships of life; for a humble 
Christian looks on every man as his master, which is the ABC 
of divine sociology. Praise, though well meant, should be ill- 
received; blame, though ill-meant, should be well received. But 

(232) 



HUMBLED AND EXALTED 



233 



this mood is highly supernatural. " Our enemies," says St. Peter 
Fourier, " are excellent masters ; they often teach us things our 
most intimate friends would rather not tell us." Alas that one 
should resent the candid censure of even a friend, and be all on 
fire at that of an enemy, for these clear the way for humility, 
the foremost of the moral virtues. 

I had rather be servant than master — can I say that in all 
sincerity? The Son of God said it and acted it out. Study His 
Passion, and see mastery, human and divine, at its best. Study 
the Eucharist, and see which of the two, yourself or Christ, is 
master. Master men's minds by suffering for them; master 
men's hearts by bowing to their will. 

A true prayer is : Lord teach me that I have no rights before 
Thy face but only obligations. Now if that be inspired by truth, 
so is this : Lord teach me that what my rights are towards Thee 
the same are they towards men : no rights at all but only duties. 
Here, finally, is my test: Shall I be honest enough to behave 
before men according to God's knowledge of men? 

A full knowledge of past sinfulness ought to be reached by 
mere memory. But that faculty gives us only facts and figures ; 
it takes no reckoning of guilt, which enters the Christian's 
mind through a supernatural influence ; and, thanks be to God, one 
of our rudimentary graces is appreciation of sin. But a rudi- 
mentary vice is that of excuse often expressed thus: Self- 
defence is nature's first law. Excuses began in Eden; and St. 
Philip Neri called a disciple who excused himself for his faults : 
" Madonna Eve," my Lady Eve. 

Why do we not correct our faults ? For the same reason that 
a father does not punish the faults of a petted child — we are 
blinded by favoritism. Be disenchanted with self, and you will 
soon begin to advance in virtue. No man can seriously practice 
self-discipline who has a good opinion of the individual to be 
disciplined. " Let us estimate ourselves by our weakest mo- 
ments " says St. Teresa (Way of Perfection, ch. vii., 5). In the 
soul's no less than in the body's sanitary report, it is not the. 



234 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



average temperature but the lowest mark of collapse, and the 
highest mark of fever, that show pathological conditions. The 
golden chain of virtue is strong as its weakest link and no 
stronger. 

In many supernatural virtues we easily trace some natural 
root of partial perfectibility, as faith is helped by one's native 
reasonableness, hope by a confiding disposition, and charity by 
an affectionate one. But it seems that humility is root and branch 
an exotic in our garden, nay more, it is unwelcome company even 
to the native virtues. Yielding place to the unworthy, accept- 
ing less that evil men may have more — such traits run counter 
to our natural sense of justice. Yet grace soon forces a reflecting 
mind to a truer adjustment than the dislocation of our original 
corruption allows. Inflamed against self by God's enlightenment, 
justice has need for all its anathemas at home. Yet to see right 
reason in self-abnegation is not a dialectic discovery. Christian 
humility is never a philosopher's virtue. It was not Socrates but 
Christ Who said to our proud race : " Learn of Me that I am 
meek and humble of heart" (Matt. xi. 29). Thus the school- 
master of anti-boasting is God. Is there any better? His ushers 
are the Christmas angels. " Down with pride of intellect," they 
exclaim, " for the wisdom of the Infinite is incarnate in this Babe ; 
down with the arrogance of office, for almighty power is wielded 
by those tiny dimpled hands, and all majesty is in the fountain of 
those gently flowing tears ; down with all pride of wealth, for 
that homespun swaddling cloth envelops the wealth of the Deity, 
and His treasurer is that poor woman who is enriched with the 
filial love of the eternal Son of God." 

This divine Professor of lowliness has added the example of 
His life to the precepts of His gospel, and that in a way that 
carries overwhelming conviction. Blessed Thomas More was 
accustomed to attend the Rogation procession, walking humbly 
on foot. He continued this custom after he was made Lord 
High Chancellor of England, and his friends told him that on 
account of his dignity he ought to go on horseback. He anr 



HUMBLED AND EXALTED 



235 



swered : " My Lord went on foot, I will not follow Him on horse- 
back." 

When the spell of this virtue is on the soul, it punctuates 
its very prayers at intervals as short as the " Glory be to the 
Father " in the recitation of the Psalms. O God I am nothing, 
but glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, 
I am what I am. And this lowering of self, with the exaltation 
of God, is inwardly repeated as often as the refrain of a litany. 
Where in such a soul will you find the bitter fruits of pride, 
disobedience, singularity, reluctance to seek advice, self-willed 
austerities, criticism of high and low, refusal to take guidance 
from anyone, but God direct? The venerable Cardinal Tarugi 
lived to be eighty-three years old. He had been employed by the 
Holy See in the gravest concerns of religion, a man of much 
learning and of wonderful elevation of character. At the end of 
his life, his greatest boast was not of the high places he had held, 
nor of the stainless repute he had enjoyed and deserved, but just 
this : " My boast is that for fifty years I have been the novice 
of Father Philip Neri. I have no other idea of myself than that " 
(Bacci's Life of St. Philip). 

To a profane mind such spirits lack initiative; humility 
seems no better than the drillmaster of God's awkward 
squad, a virtue for incapables. As a matter of fact these placid, 
yielding characters readily give place to others in the bustle 
of human striving, but not so in divine works. Here the 
leaders are most often retiring characters, men who are little 
conscious of self. They will not act, much less lead, save by 
plain appointment of God, of whom the Psalmist says : " He will 
guide the mild in judgment, He will teach the meek His ways " 
(Ps. xxiv. 9). In the seventeenth century the mildest soul in 
Europe was Vincent de Paul, and the most daring innovator in 
good works. St. Ignatius, the most retiring of Chris- 
tians, was a veritable dare-devil in God's holy warfare. In 
the things of God we must, like astronomers, sit in darkness 
if we would enjoy the light of celestial things. Says St. Catherine 



236 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



of Siena : " If we would see the stars of God's mysteries, we must 
first descend into the deep well of humility. " In the things 
of God's busier and outward vocations, meekness is mightier than 
arrogance. Of St. Athanasius, St. Gregory Nazianzen tells us: 
" His reproof spoke the kindness of a father, and his commenda- 
tion the authority of a master." He was the man whose gentle 
power was the terror of heresiarchs, and the menace of tyrants. 

One day St. Francis de Sales visited a Convent of Visitation 
nuns, and paper, pen, and ink were given him, "And he was en- 
treated," says St. Jane Francis, in her evidence for his canoniza- 
tion, " to write down what he most desired of us. He did so, 
writing very carefully at the top of the page the one word, 
humility, and nothing else." 

Humility is the best of the peace-making virtues, and this 
is the reason why the evil one hates it heartily, for he is al- 
ways opposed to a tranquil and friendly condition among Chris- 
tians. God is always in favor of peace ; Satan is always against 
God. And what is God's way of making peace? Moving the 
party who is in the right humbly to give up. Also by enlightening 
the party in the wrong, and giving him the grace to yield 
humbly. In either case, and in every case, God's via pads is 
the practice of humility. "I own that coat, you have stolen it, 
give it back." No ! that is not the way of the Prince of Peace, 
but: "If a man will contend with thee in judgment, and take 
away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him" (Matt. v. 40). 
Or if the wrongdoer is to be counselled, then it is the inspiration 
granted by our Lord to Zacheus, who affirmed : " If I have 
wronged any man of anything, I restore him fourfold" (Luke 
xix. 8). Bear in mind that our Master insists on the right side 
giving up first, and after that the wrong side, going to extremes 
in making good the injury he has done. Is not a low opinion of 
one's own rights, and an extravagant one of others' rights, neces- 
sary in all this. Hence St. Paul's remedy for dissensions among 
brethren: "Let nothing be done through contention, neither by 
vainglory; but in humility let each esteem others better than 



HUMBLED AND EXALTED 



237 



themselves" (Phil. ii. 3). To esteem others a better kind of 
humanity than oneself, damps the fires of suspicion. One does 
not easily suspect, much less resist, those whom he looks up to 
as better deserving than himself. 

Can any man be more pitiably ignorant than the man who is 
ignorant of his own place and grade before God. Nay, who is not 
simply ignorant, but who is so far deluded as to rate himself ; 
ridiculously above his place. Hence the saying of Pere Boudon : j 
"We are never in a better state than when we think ourselves in 
the worst" {Devotion to the Angels, Part II., ch. iii.). Hence, 
too, a practical aim in the spiritual life is to receive contempt 
with patience always, to learn to do so readily, and finally to 
be glad of contempt. This disenchantment with self is not a form 
of despondency, for it only displaces self-adulation in favor of 
divine adoration, bringing into clearer and clearer relief God's 
infinite perfections, all of which are ours by the filial senti- 
ments hereby engendered. This is according to what our Lord 
said to St. Teresa in a vision : " True humility is this : a soul's 
knowing what itself can do, and what I can do " {Relations v., 1). 
Christian humility leads direct to God ; it was the path the Son 
of God trod when He came forth from the Father, it was 
that He followed when He returned to Him. On the eve of His 
Crucifixion, He said of that most humiliating event, " I go to the 
Father " (John xiv. 13). In the growth of grace within us, self- 
aversion guards us against straying away from God's guidance, 
for the choice is always between self and God. Humility cor- 
rects self-will, and turns our soul's native forces to useful 
religious ends. It opens our minds to good advice and good 
example. Humility clears the outer air for plain perception of 
God's providences, for the worst blindness is seeing things 
wrongly shaped, wrongly placed; and this form of blindness 
is that of proud men. Pride, too, has a weather gauge in the 
tongue. According to St. Bernard a proud man is " one who 
either boastfully proclaims himself what he is, or falsely pro- 
claims himself what he is not." 



2 3 8 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



It is not necessary to discuss the difference between pride and 
vanity, for both are but the action and reaction of self-esteem. 
Vainglory is pride turned inside out. If I act for self-approval 
only I am proud only. If I act for self -approval and man's ap- 
proval, I am proud and vain. Sometimes it is said of a haughty 
character, he is too proud to be vain, but never is it said of a 
seeker after men's favor that he is too vain to be proud. For 
if I act for the approval of others it is that I may the more 
approve myself. How vivid the contrast between all this, and 
the holy acquisitiveness of men's favor which the humble feel, 
namely, the seeking of human affection that it may be the instru- 
ment of charity or of zeal for souls. Disinterestedness, accord- 
ing to Christ, is ambition disinfected of self-interest. But where 
shall we find this except in souls that are the most ripened 
fruit of God's perfection. Humility is the cure of all irrita- 
bility. How can a man, whose thirst for humiliations is never 
quenched, be angry at bad treatment? If one is contentedly con- 
scious of inferiority to his fellows, how can he resist any in- 
dignity whatsoever. Such a one is free from the commonest cause 
of quarrels in families and in communities, namely, the notion that 
he has rights that must be respected. 

Read what St. Teresa says about this fruitful cause of dis- 
pute: the italics are all the Saint's own: " I often tell it to you, 
Sisters, and now I leave it to you here in writing, so that not only 
those dwelling in this house, but all who aspire after perfection, 
may fly a thousand leagues away from saying: I was in the right; 
it was not right for me to suffer this ; they had no right to do such 
a thing to me. Now God deliver us from such wrong rig Jits. 
Do you think there was any question of such rights when our 
good Jesus suffered the injuries which were so unrighteously 
heaped on Him" (Way of Perfection, Stanbrook, ch. xiii., i). 

We hear much call for energy in the religious world, and 
indeed there is a plentiful lack of it. But seldom do we hear 
praise of an energetic purpose to do humiliating things. Would 
that we all had such a readiness for humiliations as pious souls 



HUMBLED AND EXALTED 



239 



have for visiting churches and hearing sermons. Would to God 
that a positive zest energized us for seeking to do obscure and 
thankless and disagreeable things for religion and our neighbor. 
Especially is this admirable in those whose office or whose 
worldly fortune makes them conspicuous among us. Here the 
remembrance of past sins is a useful brake on the wheels of 
vainglory. St. Augustine of Canterbury worked many miracles 
in the course of his missions among the English. Whereupon 
Pope St. Gregory wrote to him: "If you remember that you 
have at any time offended your Creator either by word or deed, 
always have that before your eyes, to the end that the remem- 
brance of your guilt may crush the vanity in your heart." To 
which of us does not this admonition apply ? Which of us has not 
some secret cabinet of tearful memories ? What better pilgrimage 
can I ever make than to retire into it, fearful and thankful to- 
wards my offended God? And on emerging from this holy seclu- 
sion, I shall easily heed the Apostle's injunction of " being sub- 
ject to one another in the fear of Christ " (Eph. v. 21). 

Good manners of the religious sort can be had only by 
cultivating humility, which is rightly defined as an habitual 
self-depreciation founded on truth. It makes us deferential, not 
condescending (which is always self-flattery) to our equals, read- 
ily open to advice, not averse to be blamed, justly or unjustly. 
In this holy mind we take others' faults leniently, so that in an 
opportune time we may gently chide them " in the spirit of meek- 
ness," considering our own delinquencies (Gal. vi. 1). Christ is 
undoubtedly opposed to self-assertiveness. Sometimes, indeed, we 
must stand up for God's rights to fulfill a bounden duty of 
correction, or to defend the cause of religion. But even here 
one should pause and think whether to yield for the moment may 
not gain a vantage ground for a future victory. St. Benedict had 
first established his monastery at Subiaco, and that was plainly 
by the divine will. But a certain priest of the neighborhood 
slandered him fouly and publicly persecuted him. What did the 
Saint do? Stand his ground like a man, and fight for the good 



240 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



cause of religion against its enemy? No; he acted quite other- 
wise. He left the care of God's honor to God's providence, and 
he departed from Subiaco, going to Monte Casino. Meekness, 
silence, patience were the roots of that monastic tree he planted 
there, whose leaves were "for the healing of the nations " (Apoc. 
xxii. 2). 

" But he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he 
who commendeth himself is approved, but he whom God com- 
mendeth" (2 Cor. x. 17, 18). This sounds clear enough. Yet 
who wills to stand or fall simply and wholly by God's judgment? 
Only a saint. Yet what approval can compare with God's ? And 
whose approval is so easily to be had? Venerable Baronius tells 
us of St. Philip Neri : " He was a determined enemy of his own 
praises." Enemy; a man fights his enemies, resists and assails 
them. In this spirit a Christian hinders his being praised, sup- 
presses his praise, and makes light of it; in every way he is 
indifferent, even averse to it. He does all this with determina- 
tion ; he is " a determined enemy of his own praises." It is a 
question of loving justice and truth or petty fraud; for when 
one has under stress of God's truth placed himself outside the 
praises of men, then the acceptance of their praise is to him a 
fraud. Having assimilated this principle of humility, let us 
adhere firmly to its practice, never desiring praise, never for a 
moment seeking it, never fishing for it in conversation, or coun- 
tenancing it in our friends' talk, or tolerating the least sensation 
of pleasure in it when bestowed on us. 

To them that love God in lowliness of spirit " all things work 
together unto good" (Rom. viii. 28), for everything sweet or bitter 
is referred to Him Who is supremely loved. To the vainglorious 
it is just the reverse; every good or evil thing in life tends to 
their injury. Is such a one prosperous? He is inflated. He is 
despondent in adversity. His very fidelity to pious practices 
sets him to sleep with false security. Is he active in religion 
or charity? This virtue of zeal is inspired by men's applause, 
and he presently becomes the statistician of his own achievements. 



HUMBLED AND EXALTED 



241 



" For such a soul," says Pere Chaigon, " the gift of tears, the gift 
of prophecy, would be a mortal poison." There are pious per- 
sons whose whole activity is striking attitudes, " to be seen of 
men" (Matt. vi. 16); they order their rooms and wear their 
clothes to draw compliments for their simplicity of life ; they in- 
troduce and discuss topics to absorb attention and to be thought 
spiritual. Even they yield to others in order to advertise their 
own meekness. Are not these notorious symptoms of vanity 
alarming enough ? Thanks be to God for the grace of being thus 
alarmed — may the Holy Spirit keep us vigilant against vainglory, 
which is the most blinding of vices. The very velleities of pride 
are unworthy of followers of Him Whose primary school tasks 
He thus describes : " Learn of Me that I am meek and humble of 
heart" (Matt. xi. 29). Far be it from any of His pupils to cherish 
such a thought about his good works as this : How will this look ? 
What will my friends think of this? The cure of this tendency 
is a knowledge of one's real sinfulness, so vivid, so vigilant, as 
to constantly exclude deliberate pleasure in the thought of one's 
virtues. 

The radical cure is the appreciation of God's rights, His 
sovereign rights, to all honor and glory on earth and in heaven. 
One would think that this doctrine is so plainly according to 
the truth, that humility would come easily into possession of our 
souls, according to the prayer of Christ to His Father : " Sanctify 
them in truth " (John xvii. 17). Doubtless, some degree of meek- 
ness does find a home in our motives. But in this, as in every- 
thing else, experience proves how very much our spiritual career 
depends on our repeatedly going back over the ground already 
tilled, and renewing the cultivation deeper, plowing here better, 
weeding there more carefully, draining more careful in another 
place. This is fundamentally true of the virtue of humility ; its 
graces must constantly be renewed by prayer, and exercises of 
lowliness and the incessant application of its maxims both to 
our external and our mental condition. 

A good test of any of our thoughts and words and deeds is 



242 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



this: how would it stand examination before Christ? And that 
examination, an infinite scrutiny at the day of our death, is 
impending every day we live, as in the case of the Apostles : 
"And when they were in the house He asked them, 'What did 
you treat of in the way?' But they held their peace, for in the 
way they had disputed among themselves which of them should 
be the greatest" (Mark ix. 32, 33). The whole world, in the 
absence of Christ, now loudly, now secretly, disputes who shall be 
the greater. The moment He intervenes personally and asks 
what it is we are wrangling about, we are silent and ashamed. 
Ambition and pride is not so foul a sin as drunkenness, nor so 
base a one as avarice, but it is shameful enough among Christians 
at least. It is wholly contrary to our Redeemer's principles, 
glaringly opposed to His example. And it fills the soul with the 
clamor of its excuses: I must get that place of honor, to keep 
out such a one who is grossly unfit for it; I am advised to seek 
it by good men; I really do not desire honors, but I can serve 
God's ends in this place. I, I, I, always I, the only Christian way 
is to blindly follow our Master's maxim, " If any man desire 
to be first, he shall be the last of all and the minister of all" 
(Mark ix. 34). 



XXVI. 



MILDNESS AND FORCE. 

A mild tempered man is good company, and if prudent and 
pious he is the best of advisers; so much is freely admitted. 
But that he is the better sort of a leader of men sounds like 
a paradox, for mildness is commonly confused with timidity. 
Yet he is a bette- leader, though not a better driver of men. 

To a right mind the great achievement of a Christian's day 
is making someone happy. In the family the greatest hero is 
the patient mother. In broader fields is it the Napoleons of 
history who have blessed their people, or the Washingtons who 
fight reluctantly, suffer silently, and give up every place of 
power gladly? 

A gentle soul may lack initiative for acquiring dominion, 
and for defending personal rights ; the very name of rights is to 
him a red signal of danger. But mark his ambition to lead in the 
service of the sick ; follow, if you can, his busy steps among the 
poor; rival his kindly silence under insults. God grant you the 
instinctive ambition to achieve these high victories of Christ, 
the commonplace victories of self-forgetful souls. We repeat 
that among the mild-natured there is no aggressive force for 
vindicating personal rights, except these are identified with the 
rights of others ; nor for any striving of self-interest. When 
such aims are to be compassed, look not to a humble Christian for 
a pattern of conduct. But if you would have a preceptor and a 
pattern to dispel ignorance, alleviate pain, stand valiantly against 
vice, then look for one whose views of self are dim, and whose 
light of charity is heaven's brightness. 

Give me the undaunted spirit of the martyr, and you may 
keep the restless energy of the capitalist. Humility being the 

(243) 



244 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



truth about oneself, is indeed discouraging to self-assertiveness. 
But as it is also the truth about God, it generates the Apostle's 
spirit : " I can do all things in Him Who strengthened me " 
(Phil. iv. 13). Consider whether the following statement of right 
relationship to God be not true : " I would rather be infirm than 
strong before God, for the infirm He takes into His arms, while 
the strong He leads by the hand " (St. Francis de Sales, Letters 
to Religious, Mackey p. 422). 

Mildness is the plumb-line of the spiritual builder, the soul's 
straight up and down between earth and heaven. No virtue is 
proved genuine till its possessor is proved humble. Even the 
claim of the supreme virtue of love must stLhd or fall by this 
test: " Charity is not puffed up" (1 Cor. xiii. 4). Or rather 
humility is that form of love which tests every other form; 
for anyone who loves God or his neighbor with sincerity, makes 
little of himself with equal sincerity. The road to God is the 
quiet by-path of the meek, rather than the glaring highway of the 
self-sufficient. Once a man asked St. Philip Neri to teach him 
how to meditate. He answered : " Be humble and obedient, and 
the Holy Ghost will teach thee." Holy Wisdom itself says: 
" Whosoever is a little one let him come to Me" (Prov. ix. 4). 
Retirement and recollection in God are kindred virtues to meek- 
ness. 

When one fears to be hurt by the praises of men, he is 
never hurt either by their praise or blame ; and he readily slips 
away from their society altogether, to commune alone with God. 
He will, however, make an exception for suffering souls or for 
outcasts, to help whom he is eager. St. Paul of the Cross once 
met the hangman of a certain town, and although it was a public 
place, he embraced him affectionately and otherwise treated him 
as an esteemed friend. The company of the most degraded of 
men, and that of the angels before the throne, has ever been a 
saint's alternation of work and prayer. 

When one suffers injury he is entitled to reparation. A 
humble man postpones the use of this natural and divine right till 



MILDNESS AND FORCE 



245 



eternity. A yet humbler man cares nothing for vindication either 
in time or eternity, if the vindication or reparation is for his 
own personal satisfaction. Nay he greedily enjoys humiliation, 
and thanks the one who inflicts it in thought if not in word. 
And he seeks in his soul for the cause of any distress he may 
feel at the injustice of others. When I am in my right Christian 
mind, no book seems so good to read, no sermon so good to hear, 
as one that makes me feel ashamed of myself. Let me read the 
book of my own heart for this, and listen to the stern preaching 
of conscience. One of the saints compares humility to a honey- 
comb, which holds and stores the sweetness of other virtues, 
though in itself it is as tasteless and unpalatable as beeswax, 
and adds : " Let humility be always at work, like the bee at the 
honeycomb, or all your virtue will be lost." 

A certain Carmelite nun in St. Teresa's time refused to 
accept the office of Prioress to which she had been elected. The 
Saint chided her for this strained humility, calling it " a foolish 
kind of perfection," and added that all were aware that she did 
not desire the office. Yet it remains true that one should avoid 
office as a rule, and accept it only regretfully, and under some 
sort of compulsion. St. Teresa gave example of this on several 
occasions. 

It is to establish humility by painful self-knowledge, that 
God visits us with His chastisements. As He said by His 
Prophet : " I will chastise thee in judgment, that thou mayest not 
seem to thyself innocent " (Jer. xxx. 11). 

The difference between the boastful Pharisee and the shrink- 
ing bashful publican is that the one relates his virtues to God, 
and the other deplores to Him his sinfulness. Much the same is 
the difference nowadays between certain devout souls and ordin- 
ary penitents. Only we are too shy to tell God frankly, as the 
Pharisee did, that we are better than others; therefore we 
insinuate it and take it for granted; and we make it a mental 
reservation, even while we verbally proclaim our sinfulness. 
From self-excusing as a habit of mind, to that of self-accusing, 



246 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



the journey is a long one. By nature self-excuse is the whole 
purpose and plan of our dealing with God. Self-accusation is 
the fruit of divine grace, a fruit sowed in tears and gathered in 
joy (Ps. cxxv. 5). 

The deeper kind of prayer takes refuge from self-contempt 
in the adorable perfections of God. The " Wise Spirit of God," 
so runs a maxim of St. John of the Cross (No. 302), "Who 
dwells in humble souls, inclines them to keep the treasures He 
has bestowed on them hidden, and to manifest their own imper- 
fections." The secret of a good meditation is taught in those 
words. When nature after long practice ceases to rebel at any 
humiliation whatsoever, " God meanwhile being the motive," then 
the more intimate touches of divine love are felt in the soul. 
" He who possesses a good foundation of humility," says Ruys- 
broeck, " does not need many words for his instruction ; God 
teaches him more than he can make known to others. Such men 
are God's disciples." 

A certain eagerness of zeal too often blinds the eyes of 
good men to their lack of meekness. Although St. Charles Bor- 
romeo was one of the sternest disciplinarians the Church has ever 
known, and constantly visited culprits with the rigors of the 
law of God and of the Church, yet this zealot for reform was a 
man of native sweetness of character, and was never known to 
yield to irritation or even to feel it, so that he never rebuked a 
fault without pain. It was conscience not imperiousness that was 
the spring of his discipline, which was the most efficacious known 
in ecclesiastical history. Once he came across a priest of a carp- 
ing disposition, who found fault with him most unjustly. The 
Saint actually made him a member of his household, kept him 
there till the end of his life, and in his will provided an annuity 
for his support. "Fear not daughter of Sion. Behold thy King 
cometh to thee, sitting upon an ass, and a colt, the foal of her 
that is used to the yoke " (Matt. xxi. 5). The triumph of Jesus, 
the greatest of our reformers, is not warlike ; His steed is an 
ass' colt; His military staff a handful of peasants; He is not 



MILDNESS AND FORCE 



247 



greeted with the blare of trumpets and the fierce shouts of many 
veteran legions, but with the hand clapping of peaceful citizens 
and the worship of little children. O Prince of gentle peace! 
Welcome to our hearts and homes, to our cities and our temples ! 
Be Thy gracious kindness our only model of force, Thy divine 
meekness our constant study. Who indeed can help adoring 
the Son of God with overwhelming fervor when He thus ap- 
peals to us : " I am in the midst of you as He that serveth " 
(Luke xxii. 27). 

One of the conspicuous graces of Christ's forerunner was 
his giving up his entire ministry in favor of the new dispensation 
in which he was to have no part — he lifts his voice and proclaims 
the Lamb of God, and presently he is prematurely dismissed from 
life with the crown of martyrdom. " He must increase, but I 
must decrease" (John iii. 30), exclaimed the Baptist, when his 
disciples would have him prolong his mission in union with that 
of Jesus. These words not seldom find application among our- 
selves, as when some fellow-servant steps before us in God's 
providence and takes up a holy work we had begun. He gains 
the praise which we had earned by originally making the under- 
taking possible, conceiving it and planning it and overcoming the 
first and most serious difficulties : and now he grows in the eyes 
of men, and we fade out of sight. This we must endure as did 
the Baptist, or rather we must with him " rejoice with joy" 
(John iii. 29). 

The praise or blame of men counts little among the reckon- 
ings of Calvary. A young novice once asked St. Macarius for 
spiritual advice. The old hermit said to him : " Go to the ceme- 
tery and upbraid the dead, and after that go again to them and 
flatter them." The novice did this, and then came back to his 
preceptor, who asked him : " Well what answer did the dead 
make?" "None at all," answered the novice, "neither to my 
blame nor to my praise." The Saint replied : " I counsel thee to 
do likewise ; learn to be moved neither by injuries nor by flat- 
teries — a sign that thou hast died to the world and to thyself." 



248 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



The genesis of an heretical tendency is as various as are the 
delusions of the human mind. But pride is the deepest root of 
the baleful plant, pride and the vanity born of the mutual praises 
of proud men banded together for resistance to God's dogmatic 
teaching authority. Remember our Savior's reproach to the Jews : 
" How can you believe, who receive glory one from another, and 
the glory which is from God alone you do not seek?" (John v. 44.) 
The final persistence of a heretic is due to the same mingling 
of self-praise and the flattery of friends : these are the means that 
harden pride of opinion into final obstinacy. St. Bernard said 
of Abelard, the arch-heretic of his day, that he knew everything 
in heaven and earth except himself. This spirit is usually ac- 
companied by proud disdain of men of inferior mental gifts or 
of imperfect education. Pride is the characteristic trait of the 
reprobate, and is, says St. Gregory, " The most manifest sign of 
being lost." 

Of course this is more conspicuously true of the deadlier 
forms of this sin. But even in its lesser grades, nay even amid our 
strivings after perfection, pride is to be detected — at least as 
a temptation — in almost every effort to advance. As St. Au- 
gustine says : " Other vices are to be feared in sins, pride is to be 
feared even in good deeds." How virtuous is that man who 
knows his own frailty, how wise is that man who knows his own 
ignorance," says St. Bernard. Father Lawrence Scupoli, the 
sainted Theatine, was bitterly maligned, slandered, and perse- 
cuted, even his priestly chastity was calumniated. His brothers 
and superiors were poisoned against him. He was forbidden to 
preach or help men's souls in any way. Calmly and meekly he 
accepted it all, and remained for years like a prisoner in his cell. 
His vindication came in God's good time, and then as the fruit 
of his meekness he presented Christendom with his book, The 
Spiritual Combat, the favorite reading of multitudes of saintly 
souls, notably of St. Francis de Sales. 

The afflictions of life, including the misunderstandings of 
our associates, if received with the fierce resistance of what is 



MILDNESS AND FORCE 



249 



called a high-spirited temperament, leave the soul soured. If 
endured with the meekness of Christ, these adversities cleanse the 
soul of its self-conceit, leave a sweet feeling of content, and often 
enough minister to works of highest usefulness, as in the case of 
Scupoli. The defiant resistance of the stoic burns him to ashes ; 
the humble resignation of the Christian adds dignity to his char- 
acter, and opens to him new sources of interior consolation. 

It would seem that nothing could humble us more than fall- 
ing from a good state of fervor suddenly into some wretched 
and deliberate venial sin — a calamity well known in our spiritual 
history. Yet is it not a deeper sense of degradation to find that 
our virtues themselves have led us into vice ; that our holy 
wisdom has degenerated into human policy; our modest bearing 
into hypocritical craving for praise ; our zeal has grown headlong 
and censorious; our candor has quickly turned into gossip, and 
we have grown quite thoughtless of our neighbor's sensibilities, 
perhaps even of his rights ? But the reaction brings a harvest of 
wisdom. Self-contempt follows upon petty baseness, even as in 
great sinners stern dismay attends on the awakening from griev- 
ous sin. Not seldom one laments an act of selfishness, of mean- 
ness with an intensity that rivals the horrors of eternal remorse in 
hell. We cannot but know that the fault was in itself trifling, 
done from surprise and in a moment of passing weakness, yet 
the memory of it in a later stage of life's journey is a blessed 
lighthouse on the darksome shore of vainglory. 

What is humility? It is an inner state of glorying in one's 
infirmity, in order that the power of Christ that has worked 
such great things in us may be the more honored. " Gladly 
therefore will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ 
may dwell in me " (2 Cor. xii. 9). My own sufficiency is hereby 
annihilated, and all my strength and my light is God's. St. Paul 
shows how this influences a really strong nature. For when he 
told of things that seemed to his advantage, it is manifestly his 
tongue not his heart that speaks. But when he recounts what hu- 
miliates him, his heart speaks by the instrument of his tongue, 



250 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



heaping confusion. on himself, styling himself with accents of un- 
deniable sincerity, a blasphemer, a persecutor of Christ in the 
person of His followers, an abortive kind of Christian, the last of 
the Apostles,, and unworthy to bear that name (see Alban Butler, 
June 30). 

The Apostle in the first chapter of First Corinthians reads 
a, hard lesson of humility to Christians who follow intellectual 
pursuits. " God," says he, " hath made foolish the wisdom of this 
world." Why ? Because the world " by wisdom knew not God 
it was "the foolishness of preaching " that saved men's souls. 
And as a matter of fact is anything more foolish than to proclaim 
that a Crucified Galilean " is the wisdom of God and the power 
of God? " I had rather — this is St. Paul's meaning — be foolishly 
crucified with Christ than wisely exalted with the Greek philos- 
ophers. When Aquinas was asked the source of his wisdom, he 
said not a word of Aristotle, whose genius he reflected so bril- 
liantly : he pointed to his crucifix. Everything he taught he was 
persuaded firmly was one form or other of the humble wisdom 
of loving God and man, "unto death, even to the death of the 
cross" (Phil. ii. 8). So the force of this new wisdom, when it 
became personalized, took the form of a community of men and 
women, very humbly placed in the scale of this world's influences, 
made up of "not many wise according to the flesh, not many 
ncble, but the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that 
He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world 
hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong. And the 
base things of the world and the things that are contemptible hath 
God chosen, and the things that are not, that He might bring to 
naught the things that are: that no flesh might glory in His 
sight " (1 Cor. i. 25-29). 

Look well to it that your wisdom be grounded in a low 
opinion of self, that as parent or friend, teacher or preacher or 
writer, your Master humbled unto crucifixion be your Model. The 
burden of every Christian teacher's instruction must be some 
trait of Christ's life, some principle of Christ's doctrine, and a 



MILDNESS AND FORCE 



summary of His doctrine is this : " Learn of Me for I am meek 
and humble of heart" (Matt. xi. 29). 

" Let not your good be evil spoken of " (Rom. xiv. 16), are 
words of admonition to those whose force for good is but native 
zest for slaying an adversary. The most costly viands may be 
spoiled in cooking; and the cheapest food be made appetizing. 
So it is with God's glorious truth. It may be so served up so as 
to be loathsome even to well-meaning inquirers, for the truth we 
teach we prepare in our minds, as we prepare food in the kitchen. 
And our listeners take it or leave it according as we have made it 
appetizing : " The ear trieth words, and the mouth discerneth 
meats by taste " (Job xxxiv. 3). If our holy faith tastes raw to 
those with whom we discuss it, that is because our own spiritual 
character is immature. Mature judgment in spiritual matters 
is the fruit rather of humble prayer than of study : " Be prudent 

therefore and watch in prayers If any man speak let him 

speak as the words of God" (1 Peter iv. 7-1 1). 



XXVII. 



REASONABLE SERVICE, OR OBEDIENCE. 

"And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was 
subject to them" (Luke ii. 51). 

This is the only record we have of the thirty years that 
Jesus spent at Nazareth, excepting the brief statements that " He 
advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace before God and man " 
(Luke ii. 52), and that He was " the carpenter" (Mark vi. 3), 
and the " Son of the carpenter" (Matt. xiii. 55). His first re- 
corded words also tell of obedience : " Did you not know that 
I must be about My Father's business? " (Luke ii. 49.) In one 
word St. Paul summarizes His whole career in the mutually 
exchangeable terms of humility and obedience : " He humbled 
Himself becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the 
cross" (Phil. ii. 8). A mighty virtue, therefore, is obedience, 
dear to our Redeemer's heart, of just renown among all Chris- 
tians, entering deep into all spiritual life. 

" Jesus was conceived by the obedience paid by Mary to 
the words of the angel ; He was born at Bethlehem by obedience 
to Caesar's edict ; He lived in obedience to His parents ; He died 
in obedience to His Father. Although He now reigns in heaven, 
He still wishes to obey men, especially in the Eucharist" (Cras- 
set's Meditations, Oct. of Corpus Christi). 

The great obedience is fidelity to conscience; to conscience, 
enlightened by Christ's teachings in Holy Church. To this is 
joined patient submission to the dispositions of Providence in our 
daily lives. Externally, it must be not a grudging, but a prompt, 
ready conformity to all lawful authority, beginning with our 
parents in early days. Interiorly, it must be affectionate and 

(252) 



REASONABLE SERVICE, OR OBEDIENCE 253 



uncritical: "And do ye all things without murmurings and hes- 
itations " (Phil. ii. 14), as the Apostle teaches. Let this practice 
, grow into a habit, and it keeps off trouble; it smoothes dif- 
ficulties; it blends with kindness, winning the gratitude of su- 
periors and equals, and pleasing God exceedingly. Always sup- 
posing divine motives, especially the imitation of our Lord. This 
splendid virtue is man's tribute of love to the sovereignty of God. 
It is inspired by the realization of the closeness of God to all 
lawfully constituted authority. If one can quickly behold and 
reverence the heavenly Father in all institutes, from the Church 
of Christ down to the humblest Christian household, from the 
President and Congress down to the village justice, such a one 
' 'serves as a son with a father." How great an error, then, 
to suppose that there is anything degrading in conforming either 
to the law of the State or of the Church and their ministers. How 
gross an error to fancy that one is freer in proportion to his 
lack of obedience to authority, whether in Church or State. He 
alone is free who is emancipated from self-will, the fiercest 
tyrant of mankind. 

Sometimes we halt in our obedience because he who calls for 
it happens personally to be unworthy. Christ our Lord obeyed 
Pontius Pilate as standing for God, though he was the most 
unworthy of men. " Thou shouldst not have any power over 
Me, unless it were given thee from above" (John xix. 11), said 
our Savior, yielding Himself helpless into Pilate's hands. 

A kindly tendency to yield to the will of another as far as 
God's law allows, is one of the most lovable traits of a manly 
character. Nor need this smother the spirit of enterprise or 
of self-help or of personal activity. On the contrary it wins a 
supremacy over others ; it gains adherents for one's own initiative, 
for it attracts love. The practice of obedience for the love of 
God saves us from the wreck of headlong self-will ; it also per- 
mits us prudently to trust ourselves in beginning and carrying to 
completion any good work. 

Obedience is the conformity of man to God. It is imme- 



254 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



diate when paid to God speaking by an enlightened conscience, 
and the inspirations of grace. When God speaks by His Church, 
in her doctrine and discipline, by His scriptures, by the be- 
hests of all who lawfully exercise authority, conformity is only 
one link removed from direct contact with the Deity, and that 
link, by divine magnetism, transmits the heavenly message to 
conscience. All adhesion to God's representatives in the external 
order is calculated to purify, enrich, and enforce inner conform- 
ity to Him. Its second purpose — a very practical one — is the use 
of the outwardly expressed divine will, to test the validity of the 
interior impulses of religion. For it is by our outward union 
with God's men that we make sure of our union with God's 
inspirations. It is thus that our inner life may be the " reasonable 
service" (Rom. xii. i) commended by the Apostle. 

Obedience is often ranked as the hardest of virtues. It 
surrenders, indeed, our dearest birthright, our liberty. Hence 
real obedience is connoted with clear perception of God's rights 
lodged in His representatives. When the rights of God are seen 
in men, as in parents, prelates, priests, and religious superiors, 
their claims are admitted to be the claims of God. Another help 
is the sentiment of kindliness which follows the conviction, " that 
it is a more blessed thing to give than to receive " (Acts xx. 35). 
Most men easily share their mental gifts, their learning and 
ability, and many men do not grudge to give away their money. 
They feel honored by their generosity. Why is it that they feel 
degraded by obedience which is giving to other men, for God's 
sake, a share of their independence? The greatest obstacle to 
obedience is the feeling that it is an unworthy thing to do an- 
other's will. But the supreme worthiness of our life is in making 
others happy. And is not this best done by personal service? 
That it is not always without pain does not lessen its value, but 
rather enhances it. Our Lord once said to St. Teresa: "There 
is no obedience where there is no resolution to suffer; think of 
My sufferings and then every obedience will be easy." Pain there 
is and joy there is in every true-hearted act of Christian virtue. 



REASONABLE SERVICE, OR OBEDIENCE 255 



Hearty obedience springing from conviction of right and 
duty produces uniform peace of mind. Grounded in a clear view 
of God's purpose to reveal His will by human instrumentalities, 
it is intelligent; and rudimentary kindness suffices to make it 
affectionate. Submission to external divine agencies is a symbol 
of interior love, both for God and for man ; it is also a channel 
of its communication. A Christian spirit of submissiveness is 
both a guerdon of Christian peace and a criterion of Christian 
perfection. Herein is seen how the two mediums of divine au- 
thority, the outer and the inner, blend together in a single influence 
of outward love. Conformity which is barren of interior fruit 
is that which is reluctant and disputatious. The right kind puri- 
fies our " souls in the obedience of charity with a brotherly love " 
(1 Peter i. 22). 

Hence to very many the imitation of Christ lies mainly in 
the practice of obedience. Fidelity, loyalty are terms telling 
the whole story of many saintly lives. For " he that strives 
to draw himself from obedience, withdraws himself from grace " 
(Imitation, Book III., 13). The obedience of some is willing 
only when it is an act of human friendship rather than of divine 
charity, it is only a tribute of personal affection. Let us be on 
our guard and take God fully into account, obeying holily as well 
as affectionately. But let superiors remember that this virtue can 
be practised smoothly by the majority of men, only when submis- 
sion is given to one whom they personally esteem or at least 
respect. 

Viewing all states of life, all kinds of characters, this virtue 
enters the current life of spiritual men more than any other. Not 
that this one can substitute itself for all the others, but because 
a tendency to pass over one's own will, in favor of that of others 
for God's sake, finds an unbroken succession of occasions for 
virtue. And because everything we do may be in obedience to a 
rule of life, and a joyful advertence to that rule as the expression 
of God's will is easily made habitual. Without the thought of 
God in the mind, one may be very compliant, yet not at all obe- 



2 5 6 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



dient. The hardest problems of life are easily solved when the 
terms of equation are love and duty. 

Real obedience is not so much submission as loyalty. Rever- 
ence and affection produce the submission that is an interior vir- 
tue. My primary relationship to my superior is reverence for his 
office, following this is my affection for himself, because he is 
my superior and stands for God. We do not deny that pressure 
is sometimes needed to elicit conformity; but in a really obe- 
dient man the pressure is brought to bear by himself and not by 
his superior. 

St. Fructuosus was Bishop of Tarragona in Spain when 
the persecution of Valerian II. broke out. The soldiers came to 
his house in the night. " Come," they said, " the governor 
has sent for you and your deacons." " By all means let us go 
at once," exclaimed the Bishop, " or will you wait till I put on 
my shoes ? " " Please yourself about that," they answered. When 
he was ready they took him to prison, and later to martyrdom. 
He obeyed these wretches thirsting for his blood, as if they 
were dear friends, urging him to come to some delightful meeting. 
" Let us go at once, or will you wait till I put on my shoes ? " 
Small danger of such a man's setting up his own will against 
God's, since in order to do God's will he submits himself gladly 
to the will of murderers, even unto death after the example of 
his divine Master. 

Here is a test of my right standing with God: When the 
word obedience shall savor to me of love, then shall obedience 
be true, and love be proved genuine. Submission to God develops 
the filial relation to God as St. Paul says of Timothy: "Now 
know ye the proof of him, that as a son with a father, so hath 
he served with me in the gospel" (Phil. ii. 22). How far this 
is from the obsequiousness of a hireling; how much above 
even the merely natural affection of a brotherly fellow-worker. 
There is a divine sonship in obedience, begun, perhaps, in human 
affection, but striding onward to conscious imitation of the inner 
life of the Son of God Himself. St. Francis de Sales says in one 



REASONABLE SERVICE, OR OBEDIENCE 257 



of his letters to St. Jane Francis de Chantal (the italics are his 
own) : " Here is the general rule of our obedience written in great 
letters: We must do all by love and nothing by force. We must 
love obedience rather than fear disobedience. I leave you the 
spirit of liberty, not that which excludes obedience, for this is 
the liberty of the flesh; but that which excludes constraint, and 
scruple and worry" {Letters to Persons in the World, Mackey, 
p. 160). 

Obedience is of two kinds. One, that difficult submissiveness 
when my superior's purposes run counter to my own, and I set 
my own aside in favor of his for the love of Jesus Christ. The 
other, that easy virtue, when I not only do what my superior 
prescribes, but would do it anyhow, because I believe in it and 
love it for God's sake. This latter is the obedience of heaven. 
The former is the obedience that wins heaven. Mademoiselle Le 
Gras, inseparably associated with St. Vincent de Paul in his 
greater works of charity, was sent by him to establish a branch 
of them in a certain diocese, and was expelled by the bishop. The 
Saint wrote to her: " Our Savior will receive more glory from 
your submission than from all the good you could have done. 
One diamond is worth more than a mountain of stone. And one 
act of submission is worth more than any number of good works." 

Some object that a religiously obedient soul is devoid of 
initiative, that he is a mere machine moved by authority. This 
is not so. St. Paul's disciples were, like himself, the freest and 
most venturesome of spirits, and he exhorts Titus to instruct 
them both " to obey at a word," and " to be ready to every good 
work" (Titus iii. 1). Here is instant obedience coupled with 
ready initiative. A great desire of doing good, if it be really 
a grace from heaven, holds fast to friends, and is capable of a 
familiar and easy submission ta superiors as heaven's repre- 
sentatives. 

" In proportion as you are hindered," says a great servant of 
God, " from doing the good you desire, do the good you do not 
desire." This way of dealing with authority he praises as a 



2 5 8 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



straight road to perfection. On another occasion the same saint 
wrote to a friend : " Every day I learn not to do my own will, 
and to do what I do not want to do." And he was the ruler of a 
diocese ! 

We often hear of blind obedience. The Catholic meaning of 
the term is that I am not only to do what I am told by my 
superior, but that I am to incline my mind to accept his reasons 
for it, because he is my superior, blind to what seems to be his 
defects of judgment; and highly appreciative of his graces and 
opportunities for being rightly guided. If it happens to be hard 
for me to acquire this feeling, at least I can suspend my own ad- 
verse judgment. Besides external conformity to what is deemed 
an unwise command, it is furthermore the part of true obedience, 
first, to suppress even interior murmuring; second, to go beyond 
that and to take the superior's point of view and endeavor to see 
things as he does; and, third, always and during every mental 
process, to sternly overcome feelings of personal repugnance. 
" I had rather be obedient at the expense of prudence than pru- 
dent at the expense of obedience " (St. Francis de Sales, Letters 
to Persons in the World, Mackey, p. 211). Herein is the sum 
and substance of blind obedience. 

A superior's advantages in forming an opinion of the wis- 
dom or unwisdom of any course of action are manifest, since he 
has the grace of his office to enlighten him. St. Ignatius says: 
" Prudence is more necessary for him that commands than for 
him that obeys." He is subject to that need by God's will, and 
therefore God is responsible for his guidance. This does not 
often go as far as the miraculous, but it certainly covers all 
practical ground of action. Is it too much to say that in a case 
between my superior and myself, God's guidance is with him 
rather than with me? No greater mistake can be made than be- 
littling the supernatural light granted to superiors. All who 
have held office bear witness that an interior change took place 
in them, and a new region of grace was entered when they were 
placed over others. There was a plainer sense of nearness to 



REASONABLE SERVICE, OR OBEDIENCE 259 



God; a new feeling of responsibility to Him, together with art 
increase of humility; new impulses of kindness, a better estima- 
tion of the good qualities of the brethren ; new homage was paid 
to the virtue of prudence, and to that of fortitude, and a keener 
search was made for supernatural motives of conduct. Now the 
subject should recognize all this. You find it in devout men and 
women who have once been superiors, shown by their reverence 
for office, appreciation of its graces, and suppleness of mind to- 
wards the superior's views. The subject has not the supernatural 
lights peculiar to office, he has the grace of obedience. 

The superior enjoys natural advantages also. He seldom 
commands without forming his opinion slowly and carefully, 
he takes counsel with official advisers, and he rarely acts, if even 
one is emphatically against him; he generally consults other 
advisers, in grave matters he always does so. These valuable aids 
to prudence are part of his law, provided for in every religious 
rule. Against the judgment thus formed stands that of the sub- 
ject, not seldom acting wholly alone, often under sudden impulse, 
perhaps under sore temptation, with few counsellors, and they 
too often eccentrics, or members with a grievance — counsellors 
worse than none at all. The superior has the broad outlook of 
his watch tower, a full comparison of persons, of works, and of 
times and circumstances. The subject is down on the ground, a 
private in the ranks. The superior is interested for the whole 
institute, disinterested as to particular persons and things; his 
motives are general, the common good demands his consideration. 
The subject's range is his particularism, generally his private 
convenience. 

True obedience is not mechanical, indifferent to views and 
opinions, but it is an inquiring state of mind, desirous to know 
the superior's motives. Least of all is it sullen, outwardly con- 
forming, inwardly grumbling. Nor does a right-minded subject 
fail to communicate every real difficulty he finds in the task laid 
on him, doing so to aid the superior and not by way of protest, 
meanwhile cultivating an uncritical attitude of mind. The obe- 



26o 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



dience we are considering is not merely professional; it is relig- 
ious and filial, and therefore affectionate. Can such qualities fail 
to win over a superior to a really truer view of things? 

We are not favoring the sudden expulsion of one's own 
opinion, and the theatrical embracing of the superior's (for who 
knows but that he may be persuaded to change his mind), but a 
reasonable readiness to be oneself persuaded, virtuous enough to 
be so, humble enough to defer to authority to that degree. Or if 
not able to do so in conscience, to drop all question of reasons 
and motives, releasing the mind from the stress of solitaire argu- 
mentation about them; above all to be silent about them among 
the brethren. 

This doctrine is not the teaching of extremists, nor of only 
one school of writers. The entire body of our spiritual guides 
are committed to the doctrine that an obedient man not only 
should direct his efforts to fulfilling his superior's commands, but 
should also conform his views, or at least make an honest effort 
to do so. Some writers go farther than others in enforcing this. 
Not all use the same illustrations nor even the term " blind." 
Not all say as St. Ignatius did (borrowing, by the way, his ex- 
pressions from venerable Fathers of Holy Church) : " Obey like 
a corpse, obey like a walking stick." But the whole chorus of 
Catholic teaching says in unison f Bend your views as well as your 
actions to lawful authority; or if you positively cannot do that, 
at least you can and must cease to discuss the matter with 
superiors and with others, even cease to discuss it with yourself. 

Many a one is scared by the term " blind " obedience. But 
why not be scared off from loving God by our Savior's saying? 
"If any man come to He and hate not his father and mother — 
he cannot be My disciple " (Luke xiv. 26). As the word " hate " 
in this passage is used figuratively, so is the word " blind " in that 
which tells of disinterested obedience. Taken literally our Lord 
exhorts us to a crime ; taken figuratively He exhorts us to abso- 
lute devotedness to a divine vocation. Many a one in fact is 
accused of literally hating his parents when he leaves home to 



REASONABLE SERVICE, OR OBEDIENCE 261 



join a religious order. So are we accused of blindness in obeying 
when we fix our glances exclusively upon the will of God in 
submitting to our rule and our superiors. 

One of the best uses of a figure of speech is that it does 
not immediately convey its full meaning, but requires explana- 
ation : witness our Savior explaining His parables. " Love is 
blind " — a universal motto. We should love blindly, if at all ; 
we cannot deeply love otherwise. There is something admirable 
in the blind confidence between man and wife. What is the trust 
of children in their parents? Blind or none at all. I aspire to 
be similiarly minded towards my rule, my founder, my superiors, 
in all matters of our common life, including obedience. When a 
superior and a subject differ in opinion about the latter's duty, 
the whole outcome turns on this: Do they love each other? 
If yes, then love is blind, and therefore when candid discussion 
is done, the superior is won over, or the subject is won over, 
or at any rate he has sidetracked his views and opinions. 

Blind is a strong adjective in this connection; but earnest 
natures deal in strong language, just as earnest action often 
verges on excess. Zeal and fanaticism often look alike and talk 
alike. If you are flagging a train of cars to prevent collision, 
you act like a maniac to an onlooker who does not know your 
purpose. 

The gravest difficulty in obeying is mental obstinacy. Self- 
opinionativeness is as stubborn as it is self-conceited. Among 
the varieties of the first capital sin is pride of opinion. St. 
Philip Neri once said to his disciple : " Perfection is in the 
breadth of three fingers," and as he spoke the Saint laid three 
fingers lengthwise across his forehead. 



TV 



XXVIII. 



CHASTITY, 

St. Timothy was a Saint, and trained by a saintly mother 
(2 Tim. i. 5), yet St. Paul writes to him with an accent of stern- 
ness: " Keep yourself chaste" (1 Tim. v. 22). Of the foul vice 
opposed to chastity the same Apostle writes to the Ephesians: 
" Let it not so much as be named among you " (Eph. v. 3) . Well 
do these admonitions apply in our day, when the brutishness of 
pagan times has come back upon us, and Christendom finds itself 
invaded by uncleanness in every form. To be good, or to do 
good, one must now walk among lewdness. Literature, art, 
society, law, politics, and every sort of amusement are all tainted, 
or threatened with taint of wantonness. To serve God in purity 
of life one must be like the chaste moonbeams shining on -an 
ocean of filth. To help save souls, and yet to keep free from 
contagion oneself, one must be equipped with the vigilance of a 
life-saver on some storm-beaten coast. Yet to fight this awful 
carnality, every Christian is enlisted under the cross of the 
Virgin's Son. Let us engage in the conflict with a courage worthy 
of our Leader and our cause. " Thanks be to God Who hath 
given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ " ( 1 Cor. 
xv. 57). 

Our Savior calls chastity the angelic virtue, teaching that 
in the future life, His friends " shall neither marry nor be mar- 
ried, but shall be as angels of God in heaven" (Matt. xxii. 30). 
The expression " pure as an angel " has become a proverb. His 
purity is in one way superior to ours, for it is inherent in his 
nature, and ours is the prize of a hard-fought battle. In the angels 
there is no ugly fever of lust, for flesh and*blood they have none, 
but our flesh and blood incessantly strives to smirch our soul, 

(262) 



CHASTITY 



263 



which though created " a little less than the angels " (Ps. viii. 6), 
is chained to the carnal body, like a prince of brightness to a 
demon of the deep pit. We need the company of our guardian 
angel as an incentive to purity of life, to help us love God on 
earth, as he, pure spirit, loves Him in heaven. 

Although not indeed angelic, our purity is glorious because 
militant. It waves the banner of the many victories of our spirit 
over the rebellions of flesh and blood; over native tendencies to 
uncleanness; the allurements of dangerous company; the delu- 
sions of cunning excuses, all vanquished by a valiant and agres- 
sive purity of soul. On the other hand, if there can be such a 
thing as joy in hell, it would be the triumph of the fiends at the 
fall of a devout Catholic into moral filthiness. The demons would 
fain snatch the veil of innocence from his head, and bear it 
stained and torn in a dreadful orgy of victory among the damned. 
This would be Satan's dearest insult to Christ, his immortal 
enemy, the King of virgins. 

As the citizens of the heavenly kingdom are beings in whom 
sexual feelings are non-existent, so should God's kingdom on 
earth be ruled and made up of men and women in whom the 
sexual instinct is under the perfect control of reason and grace 
— angelic men and women. Great human models are not wanting. 
We prescind our Redeemer, for both the human and divine 
natures were His : " For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the 
Godhead corporeally" (Col. ii. 9). But look at the angelic valor 
of the virginal Elias, the angelic obedience and detachment of 
the virginal John the Baptist named by our Lord " an angel " 
(Matt. xi. 10) ; the angelic wisdom of the virgin disciple, " whom 
Jesus loved " (John xix. 26) ; the angelic zeal of the virgin 
Apostle of the Gentiles, who was wafted up to heaven to be 
initiated before his time into the company of angels. All these 
are glorious human models of our angelic virtue. And presently 
we shall treat of the angelic and more than angelic dignity of 
chastity in the virgin Mother of God, before whom the heavenly 
ambassador bowed down in lowly reverence. 



264 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Do you aspire to be as fearless in God's cause as Elias the 
prophet ; to be as austere as John the Baptist ; to be as wise and 
prayerful as John the Evangelist ; as zealous a convert maker as 
the Apostle Paul? Then bear in mind that each of these, and 
especially the Mother of Jesus, their Queen, was preeminently 
distinguished for chastity. To everyone who longs for a holy 
life his guardian angel puts the question : " Who shall ascend 
into the mountain of the Lord ; or who shall stand in His holy 
place?" And he gives the inspired answer: "He that hath 
clean hands and a pure heart" (Ps. xxiii. 3, 4). O Lord Jesus 
Christ, show me ever brighter ways of stainless purity, for my 
soul is espoused to Thee, and our nuptial vows are renewed con- 
stantly in Holy Communion. Grant me a shrinking dread of the 
least defilement, and anxious appreciation of all needful safe- 
guards in my daily life. 

Christian purity is the most exquisite of virtues. It pro- 
duces a refinement of mind and of manners wholly peculiar to the 
discipleship of Christ; it enjoys a sense of inner cleanness, a 
shrinking sensitiveness to the least outward danger; it forms 
the noblest type of manhood, the loveliest type of womanhood. 
It was, as we have already said, foreshadowed in the ancient he- 
roes of God's people, Elias and Eliseus ; it was a holy splendor in 
John the Baptist, and was made the eternal boast of the male sex 
in Joseph, the virginal spouse of Mary. And it is of essential 
significance that the great Mother of God was not only pure, 
not only immaculate from the first moment of her existence, but 
was a virgin, ever and perpetually the virgin, to be acclaimed 
in all ages the Blessed Virgin, the Virgin of virgins. The Holy 
Spirit, by Whose overshadowing she was made the Mother of 
God, could salute her as His Spouse : " Thou art all fair, O 
My love, and there is no spot in Thee " (Cant. iv. 7). The purity 
of Christ was thus rightly served by the purity of His Mother, 
of which He was the motive and pattern. 

The intercession of St. Joseph is universally invoked for 
the preservation of chastity, and never in vain. Joined to the 



CHASTITY 



265 



purest of women, by virginal nuptials, what man ever knew the 
fullness of purity as did Joseph of Nazareth, that one only man 
worthy to be the spouse of Mary ever Virgin? Pere Louis Lal- 
lemant had such a veneration for him as the husband of the 
virgin Mother, that he not only invoked and praised him con- 
tinually, but when he came to die he begged that a little statue 
of the saint might be placed in his coffin and buried with him 
(Spiritual Doctrine, p. 18). 

When our chastity is so motived as to be another name for 
the love of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, it is a virtue perfect in 
its kind; it is one with the personal purity of Christ by holy 
concomitance. The Christian's life is thus made an offering of 
chastity to God, a sacrificial offering in which the victim is 
wholly consumed in token of the sovereign purity of the God-man. 
His bearing and conversation is recognized as a " sacrifice to 
God for an odor of sweetness" (Eph. v. 2), made one with the 
offering of Jesus on Calvary. The least knowledge of mankind 
shows the need of this in the midst of a world besotted with 
lust. Every day proves its efficacy in the influence of a celibate 
priesthood, of innumerable convents of women pure as angels, 
and also in the holy influence of Catholic family life everywhere. 
At this wondrous spectacle of superhuman chastity the very un- 
believers exclaim with the Wise Man : " O how beautiful is the 
chaste generation with glory" (Wisd. iv. 1). 

How great was the purity of God's saints. Many of the 
martyrs were feeble women, who shed their life's blood not only 
for the religion of Christ, but also for its chastity. The Church 
proclaims them martyrs by a twofold title, holy faith and holy 
purity. In later ages, in every age, in our own time, all nobler 
characters have felt the spell of this virtue, and, under the leader- 
ship of the holy celibate priesthood, have practised it in every state 
of life. It is said that St. Dominic's hands gave out a delicious 
perfume, which instilled thoughts of purity into the hearts of 
his companions. May not every Christian, each in his own degree 
and measure, be gifted in like manner? not miraculously, indeed, 



266 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



yet as he works and rests, as he converses and listens, a fragrance 
of purity may encircle him, breathed out from a stainless spirit. 
Every Catholic should be a living protest against unchastity 
— that much at least. In works, words, and manners he should 
exhibit the glory of a clean life. 

In conferring the order of priesthood, the bishop says to the 
young levite : " May the fragrance of thy life be the delight of 
the Church of Christ (sit odor vita tuce, delectamentum Ecclesicz 
Christi)" What fragrance so sweet in a community as that of 
Catholic purity? Whether it be of priests and sisters, who are 
dedicated in a special manner to this virtue, or the noble self- 
restraint of our laity, chastity is the boast of the Church of Christ. 
If the task be hard — the curbing of a radically sensual nature — 
the help is divine, and given in many ways. Especially is purity 
safeguarded by the most pure Body and Blood of Christ received 
often in communion. O Body of Christ, grant me a chaste life ; 
O Blood of Christ, wash me clean; O Heart of Christ, Whose 
flame of love is such a power of chastity, burn me in Thy fire! 
Then, too, there is always safety and comfort in the most chaste 
heart of Mary Immaculate, which beats with a mother's love for 
us,- whether in the storm or stress of temptation, or the jubilant 
hours of victory. 

In the Canon of the Mass just after the Consecration, the 
priest makes the sign of the cross over the sacred elements 
three times, with this triple invocation : " Hostiam puram, hostiam 
sanctam, hostiam immacidatam." So the triple cross of chastity 
must be made upon a soul offered in union with Christ, " for an 
offering of most sweet savor to the Lord" (Num. xv. 10), an 
oblation " most pure, most holy, most unspotted." My poor body 
as well as my wayward soul must be riveted to Jesus at my every 
Mass and communion by the three golden crosses of chastity. 
In return, as He loves His own chastity, so does He love mine, 
and I must love this virtue in myself as I love it in Him. My 
God, how severe a test ! My chastity should be a form of His 
own, to be worshipped with a reverence awesome and humble. 



CHASTITY 



267 



After death I must be able to say to the demons and the damned : 
''Which of you can convince me of sin? " (John viii. 46) — which 
of you can show that I have been false to my soul's spouse? 
I defy you ! Since I plighted Him my troth, my heavenly Bride- 
groom has possessed me wholly : even my scruples I have washed 
away in bitter tears. 

St. Francis de Sales says that chastity " is a timid, sensitive, 
distrustful virtue. A little word, a look is enough to startle it." 
Can anyone claim exemption from the Saint's warning? Shall 
my soul continue chaste, and not be timid, sensitive, distrustful 
of little words and fleeting looks? And one who happens to 
be set apart for the purest of human states shall he be less careful 
of danger? He may bless God because he is removed from some 
common perils, but he should bear in mind that the vice op- 
posed to chastity is the most insidious. One might say : " I am 
too old for such things." Yet Solomon the wisest of kings, 
"when he was old, his heart was turned away by women" (3 
Kings xi. 4). Neither the word, no not even the thought of 
immunity, should enter into our calculations. 

"Watch," exclaims our Savior, and this loud cry of warning 
He repeats over and over in one brief discourse (Matt. xxiv. 37- 
44), He Who loves us so well, Who knows so well our weakness. 
Watchfulness means a sharp eye for a distant, a hidden or a 
disguised enemy, for a suspicious mind about the foolishness 
even of friends, is very reasonable. Seclusion is one of our 
best safeguards. Chastity, like a hunted deer, seeks a hiding 
place. Recreations must be especially suspect as places of am- 
bush for our foe. O Spirit of God, Spouse of my soul, guard 
my silly tongue from chaffing with persons of the other sex and 
from all jokes and fooleries with them. May I herein imitate 
blessed Job who says: "I made a covenant with my eyes, that 
I would not so much as think upon a virgin" (Job xxxi. 1). 
When tender feelings creep into my soul, towards any person, 
in any state of life, be Thou instantly with me, O Spirit of God, 
Spouse of my soul, to remind me of my plighted troth to Thee. 



268 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



The rules of modesty demand exact observance. St. Ignatius 
says : " Regulations concerning chastity do not admit of inter- 
pretation." That is they do not admit of dispensations, either by 
oneself or by one's superiors. They are not elastic like other 
rules that may change with circumstances or persons, but are 
rigidly to be obeyed and blindly followed. Mechanical exactness 
is to be followed about remotest dangers, unguarded glances, and 
gestures and attitudes, expressions, even but slightly indelicate, 
holy anxiety about interviews and conversations and letter writing. 
According to the customs of holy persons, and not the feelings 
of the moment, or the advice or sneers of the light minded, must 
one be guided. Religious decorum, modest reserve, self-dis- 
trust — these expressions must crowd back such other expressions 
as kindliness, hospitality, gentleness. Observance of the letter 
of the rules of modest behavior, is the only way to make sure 
of the observance of their spirit. 

When it is whispered in one's soul: In this case charity 
dictates a relaxation of the strict customs of decorum, the answer 
must be an emphatic No.! But he or she is a person advanced 
in age, and therefore we can make an exception — No! But this is 
a near relative. Is it a brother or sister? If otherwise — No! 
He or she is a friend from early childhood — No! But may not 
exception be made in favor of so holy a person? No! No relax- 
ation whatsoever of the rules of modest behavior. May my 
heavenly Spouse drive out of my soul and life all delusions of 
the unclean spirit. I solemnly promise God that in every case 
of doubt, I will decide against liberty and in favor of chaste 
custom. I lodge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus a promise of 
absolute candor with my Father confessor, in revealing and de- 
scribing all happenings that have alarmed my conscience. Un- 
chastity lurks in ambush, and its home is very secret: once dis- 
covered it is overcome. My Savior bids me keep my lamp 
trimmed, full of oil and brightly burning. Do men light lamps 
to guide them at noonday (Matt. xxv. 1-13) ? Our Savior knows 
that our wrestling is with the prince of darkness (Eph. vi. 12). 



CHASTITY 



269 



A mosquito spreads malaria, and a fly typhoid, both are ugly and 
disagreeable. An evil thought looks beautiful, but it wings its 
flight to our destruction, laden with sweet perfumes, and its sting 
is delicious, but deadly. 

Bodily austerities help to wither and starve the roots of . 
sensuality. Blosius says : " The flower of chastity blooms amid 
the mortifications of the body, as a lily among thorns." An active 
life, well seasoned with works of religion and charity, is a safe- 
guard. For indolence is the fruitful mother of lust, breeding 
evil thoughts; inducing over indulgence at table, eating and 
drinking between meals, thereby pampering the carnal humors 
of the body; favoring dangerous reading, perilous lengthening 
of interviews. 

The ideal relation between reason and passion, is the entire 
tranquillity of the sexual instinct, and this is heartily to be 
hoped for in our earthly life. We can secure the immediate sub- 
jugation of every criminal uprising, through supernatural motives. 
While in the state of grace, we have a stock of chastity, but it is 
a jewel held " in an earthen vessel " (2 Cor. iv. 7). Among its 
safeguards, Cassian ranks obedience first, such obedience as 
results from humility and self-distrust ; a military obedience, not 
questioning, but unquestioning. Disobedient curiosity was the 
first step of mother Eve towards slavery to Satan. The sentinel 
who sleeps on his post is liable to the death penalty, so also the 
careless Christian. I had rather be called a prude, than risk be- 
coming a wanton. Guardedness concerns itself not only with 
outer companionship, but especially with the inner sensations of 
pleasure. 

A great saint has said : " It is bad manners for a woman to 
look straight into a man's eyes." May we not say as much of 
a man looking fixedly at a woman? It is often the beginning 
of bad morals. The female sex yields in ordinary affairs to the 
stronger sex. But in matters of conscience God has established 
perfect equality. And, in matters touching holy modesty, the 
woman wields the sceptre. In the observance of decorum, the 



270 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



woman is placed by God to rule the man, and it behooves her 
firmly to assert this right. In guarding the lily of chastity, both 
women and men must be willing to be scratched by the thorns 
of evil criticism, meek self-distrust making the decision, rather 
than deference to irresponsible advisers. St. Ambrose says : " Do 
you wish to be chaste? Be humble. Very chaste? Be very 
humble." Excessive caution is the only reasonable caution in these 
cases. The most trivial precaution must never be neglected, if 
only out of blind reverence for established rules. This stern 
self-discipline is not difficult, when aided by grace at every turn ; 
it is natural to a modest soul, nay, needful as a preparation for the 
scrutiny of the living God in the Sacrament of Penance. A 
sensitive conscience is the only peaceful one. Do I feel unrest 
about what has happened? — about the joy I felt when some 
one came to see me, or when I received a certain letter? — at 
certain tender recollections? Do I feel uneasy at my shame 
in asking a certain permission? That unrest, that uneasiness, 
is the protest of the Holy Ghost, my soul's divine Spouse. For 
He is a most jealous Spouse; and I must confide the whole 
matter to Jesus in the tabernacle and also to my Father confessor, 
so that every attachment to persons of the other sex may be 
divinely scrutinized and cleansed. In times of unruly emotion, 
my instant refuge shall be the name of Jesus, the invocation of 
Mary and of Joseph. " O Jesus," exclaims St. Teresa, " all our 
evils come from not fixing our eyes on Thee." 



XXIX. 



POVERTY. 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" 
(Matt. v. 3). 

Poverty in this life, if it be of the spiritual kind, is blessed 
with the riches of the life to come. It has a sordid appear- 
ance; but there is an heavenly spirit in it. The privation of 
certain outward things, whether compulsory, in case of the 
actual poor, or voluntary, in case of others, holds a high place 
in God's ways of sanctifying souls, and praise of it was chosen 
by our Master as the beginning of His greatest discourse, the 
Sermon on the Mount. It behooves us to study well what our 
Lord means by the words, " poor in spirit," since they bespeak 
a condition meriting eternal happiness. 

Certain classes among us are our Lord's favorites, and one 
of these is made up of the poor, of persons who do not get 
enough to eat, whose lodging is miserable, whose clothing is 
scanty, who see their little children suffering want. God loves 
these poor sufferers with special ardor. His divine Son chose 
their state of life in preference to one of ease. His Blessed 
Mother was too poor to have a decent place for her Child's 
birth at Bethlehem. They had a home, indeed, at Nazareth, but 
a very humble one, where they shared the lot of those who toil. 
When Christ began to convert the world by His preaching and 
His miracles, He said of Himself : " The foxes have holes, and 
the birds of the air nests ; but the Son of Man hath not where 
to lay His Head" (Matt. viii. 20). And if He suffered poverty 
in life, what shall we say of His total and absolute want at His 
hour of death on Calvary? Yet He was the Creator and Owner 
of all things. Now we must join Him in His love of poverty. 

(271) 



272 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



To be detached interiorly from all material comforts for His 
sake, is to be poor in spirit. 

Christian poverty, as a spiritual state, is closely united 
with practical Christian charity, which is thus formulated by 
St. John the Baptist : "He that hath two coats, let him give to 
him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do in like 
manner" (Luke iii. n). Every Christian must, therefore, care- 
fully divide his belongings into two parts, necessities and super- 
fluities. The latter part he, for the love of God, devotes to the 
poor. Thus poverty of spirit generates the lovely virtue of 
generosity as a plain duty. How admirable is the well-to-do 
Christian who thinks more of tuam than of meum in the enjoy- 
ment of his means. Everyone blesses a liberal-handed man, 
doing more reverence to himself than to his money, bearing out 
the Holy Ghost's teaching : " A man shall be more precious 
than gold, yea a man than the finest gold" (Is. xiii. 12). 

" The greater the greed of men for gold, the more do they 
admire those who have the courage to despise it," exclaims a 
devout writer. There never was an age so venal as not to 
worship honesty, not so covetous as not to admire generosity. 
Never was a man so stupidly rich as not to appreciate the dig- 
nity of generosity. That most venerable of public or private 
characters, a wealthy man fond of the poor, keeping their com- 
pany, giving all to them, is universally respected. How soon 
such a one, especially if he be a priest or a public official, be- 
comes the common depositary of the charity of the people. 
Every well-to-do man is nowadays likely to be an object of 
hatred to the wilder sort of agitators for social equality. But 
he is immune from their attacks, if he can say what St. Basil 
said to his persecutors : " If you rob me, you rob the poor." 
True of men and officials, this is doubly true of religious cor- 
porations, dioceses and others. We have adverted to the oblig- 
ation of helping the poor. For as long as anyone lacks enough 
food — and there are always many such — some part of your 
food is due and owing to them, and you may say the same of 



POVERTY 



273 



all the other necessaries of life. Give generously, do it at once, 
and keep on doing it. Give for the love of our " Lord Jesus 
Christ, Who being rich, became poor for your sakes, that 
through His poverty you might be rich" (2 Cor. viii. 9). Re- 
member that at the head of the innumerable masses of poor 
people, stands your Savior begging alms for them as the first 
among them ; and, if we may so say, every penny that you give 
them passes through His hands first, which are then raised to 
bless the giver. He " is rich in mercy " (Eph. ii. 4), to all who 
are merciful with their riches, be their wealth reckoned in the 
banker's hundreds of thousands, or in the workingman's scanty 
earnings. 

Actual privation borne for Christ's sake is a common school 
of perfection, the common one. Yet one may be rich in money 
and lands, and truly poor in spirit. St. Francis Borgia, St. 
Charles Borromeo, and many kingly saints have been inundated 
with riches ; yet this only made them the more holy, not by the 
use of these dangerous things, but by the continual opportunity 
offered of renouncing them and giving them away. If they had 
been richer, they (strange thing to say) would have been holier ; 
their disengagement of heart would have been more widely ex- 
tended, their charities multiplied. The rich prelate, Charles 
Borromeo, gave away his vast estates with the same sense of 
non-ownership as the peasant priest, Vincent de Paul, dispensed 
the gold of his rich patrons. The Wise Man tells us : " Some 
distribute their own goods and grow richer; others take away 
what is not their own, and are always in want" (Prov. xi. 24). 
Religion and detachment go together, if one's motive is to train 
with Him Who in simplicity of life shamed the birds and 
beasts : " The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air nests : 
but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head " (Matt. viii. 
20). Our Master's poverty in spirit was not divided from 
poverty in fact. 

Nor should ours be over spiritualized. It behooves us to be 
poor in spirit, not only by helping, but also by deeply sym- 



274 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



pathizing with those who are poor in fact. One can hardly 
profess to love Christ, because He was for our sakes a poor Man, 
without loving poor men. To have the spirit of detachment 
from earthly things and at the same time to be glad of their 
actual abundance in our daily life, is to be a hypocrite. If you 
love Christ's poverty, love His poor. Welcome them to your 
home, visit them in their own homes. Palliate their faults. 
Weep with them, if you have the grace, in their miseries. 
" Converse willingly with the poor," says St. Francis de Sales, 
" be pleased to have them near you in the church, in the streets, 
and elsewhere. Feel poor as you converse with them ; speak 
to them as their companions " {Devout Life, III., ch. xv.). 

What are one's feelings when God attracts him to evangelical 
poverty? Mother Frances Shervier tells us, describing her 
own emotions : " Scarcely had I heard, during instruction at 
school, that our dear Savior had a special love for the poor, and 
had Himself become lowly and poor for our sake, than I felt 
impelled to a great love for the poor, and / was grieved that 
I did not belong to their number. I began to associate with a girl 
amongst us whom we considered poor, and I gave her my 
friendship. I also felt by divine grace impelled to offer up all 
temporal things to God, and asked Him to take away from me 
all I possessed, amongst other things those articles of dress 
which pleased me most." Grief for not being a member of 
God's favorite people, the poor — that is a sign of holiness. It 
was conspicuously so in this case, for Mother Shervier, who 
lived in the latter half of the past century, besides her personal 
and life-long devotedness to the poor, founded a society of 
Franciscan Sisters for conducting free hospitals. She intro- 
duced her Sisters into our country, where they are known and 
reverenced far and wide, and held in benediction by many thou- 
sands of the sick poor for their unaffected preference for penni- 
less and outcast sufferers. 

We are well clothed and lodged and abundantly fed. Nor 
do I advocate such a change from this condition as would be 



POVERTY 



275 



inconsistent with God's purpose in our vocation. But this 
must be realized : no one can escape being hurt by the good 
things of this life who does not mingle with their enjoyment 
bitter thoughts of the privations of the poor. It is related of 
St. Elizabeth of Hungary : " From her very infancy she had 
never been able to bear the sight of a poor person without her 
heart being pierced with the sharpest grief." Such sentiments 
inspired by heaven, are the making of saints, be they kings or 
peasants, laymen, priests, or order-men. 

The poverty of the Infant God at His birth is a divine 
lesson in this virtue. Comfort He had none, as to place or at- 
tendance, or circumstance. They lacked money, that little com- 
pany in the stable of Bethlehem, they were poor. Son of the 
Most High as Jesus was, His Mother and Joseph had but a little 
hoard of money. Every penny had been earned hard, and must 
be pinched before spending. But they were rich with heavenly 
treasures. Rich in wisdom; rich in knowledge and love, they 
could equip the whole world with their hearts' surplus. But 
when it came to money, a few small coins were all their store. 
O Jesus, teach me the glory of this poor state and its holiness ; 
let me begin with the beginning, for poverty is the alpha of Thy 
virtues, as it is of Thy beatitudes. 

Caesar Augustus strove for power universal, fought bloody 
wars to become owner of the entire world. Riches and power 
were his sole aim. But Jesus, Whose heart is aglow with a 
divine ambition to rule, gave up all to win dominion over 
men's souls by love alone. To conquer our pride, He stooped 
to the lowest humiliation. To cause us to love one another and 
renounce home and kindred for the sake of friend or foe, He 
gave up Paradise and came to live among us. To suffer want 
for the welfare of others — behold the imperial wisdom of the 
Christian state ! 

The angel said to the shepherds : " This day is born to you 
a Savior, Who is Christ the Lord, in the City of David. And 
this shall be a sign unto you You shall find the Infant wrap- 



276 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



ped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger " (Luke ii. 11, 12). 
The sign of all power from that day to this, the sign of all 
riches, is a royal Mother in a stable, an Heir rich enough to 
ransom all mankind out of bondage, Himself too poor to buy a 
night's lodging. A spectacle that has entranced the nobler 
kind of men in every age. 

St. Teresa admonishes her nuns that if they lack disinter- 
estedness they " are deceiving the world," ' and that if having 
embraced poverty, they are not poor in spirit, but only in exter- 
nals, their conscience shquld prick them, since then they be- 
come like miserly " rich people asking for alms " {Way of Perfec- 
tion, Stanbrook, ch. ii., 2). Community rule limits one to a 
moderate and even frugal use of temporal goods by law, but 
its spirit enjoins such a daily life as causes one to actually feel 
need. If a state of poverty does not involve personal want, 
where is the poverty? Temperance yes, but temperance is not 
an evangelical counsel. Obedience to the letter of the rule 
secures frugality, economy. Obedience to its letter and spirit adds 
poverty. A miser practises thrift in various ways; thrift be- 
comes holy poverty when practised by a Christian in union 
with the poor Man of Calvary. Canonical poverty takes us 
from solicitude about temporal goods, in order that we may 
labor the more freely for spiritual goods both for ourselves 
and our neighbor. But this peace and security is in itself not 
poverty at all, but just the reverse, being what is commer- 
cially known as insurance. Unless it is wholly rooted in 
confidence in God, as the community's procurator, it 
is a business advantage, and not a religious one. Sometimes 
community life is but the quiescence of a comfortably if frugally 
provided man, whose moderate desires are all supplied as part of 
his " rights." Hence the constant reiteration in Rules and 
Constitutions that the members must live, and realize that 
they live, upon the charity of the faithful ; hence the stern insist- 
ence on this essential truth in the conferences of the annual 
Retreats. 



POVERTY 



One who is called to live in our Savior's company, must bear 
in mind that, whereas His gift to us is " the unsearchable riches 
of Christ" (Eph. iii. 8), of Himself He said by the Prophet: 
"I am poor and in labors from my youth" (Ps. lxxxvii. 16). 
Some degree or quality of real want was never absent from Him, 
Whose company is our dearest privilege — the extreme of penury 
marking His life's entry and close, born miserably in a stable, 
dying naked on a cross. " When I saw Christ on the cross," 
exclaims St. Teresa, " so poor and destitute, I could not bear to 
be rich, and I implored Him with tears so to order matters that 
I might be poor as He was " {Life, ch. xxxv., 4). Why should 
any true imitator of Jesus seek to prosper in a world in which 
his Master chose to live in want and die an outcast? When 
and where did the Patriarch Jacob wrestle with an angel, behold- 
ing the ladder reaching from earth to heaven, " the angels of 
God ascending and descending by it, and the Lord leaning upon 
it?" (Gen. xxviii. 12, 13.) It was when his bed was the bare 
ground, and a rock was his pillow. W 7 hen did King David fall 
away from God? When he was filled with riches. To be safe is 
to be poor in spirit, holding riches in contempt — to be both safe 
and innocent. This spirit of poverty it is that makes one rich 
in spirit. 

A poor Dominican friar, Blessed Henry Suso, when asked 
what his thoughts were while he sang " Sursum Corda — Lift up 
your hearts " — in the preface of holy Mass, answered : " My 
heart is stirred and set on fire with the contemplation of my entire 
being, my whole soul, my body, my forces, and my powers, and 
round about me are gathered all the creatures with which the 
all-powerful God has peopled the heavens, the earth, and the 
elements ; the angels of heaven, the beasts of the forests, the 
fishes in the waters, the plants of the earth, the sands of the sea, 
the atoms floating in the sunshine, the flakes of snow, the drops of 
rain, and the pearls of dew. I think how all creatures, even to 
the most remote extremities of the world, obey God and contribute 
what they can to that mysterious harmony which goes up with- 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



out ceasing to praise and bless the Creator. I then fancy myself 
in the midst of this concert as choirmaster; I devote all my 
faculties to beat time; with the most energetic movements of 
my heart I invite them, I excite them to sing most joyously with 
me, ■ Sursum Corda — Lift up your hearts.' We have lifted them 
up to the Lord ; let us give thanks a thousand times to the Lord 
our God." This man in his poverty was master of the universe, 
and could command the very inhabitants of heaven to worship 
God with him. 

Who is more the owner of my painting: I who have pur- 
chased it, and stand and gawk at it, and clap my money bags; 
or the out-at-elbow artist who looks into heaven through it? 
Who is real Lord of the universe, but Jesus the Son of God, Who 
has never a rood of land nor a dollar of money, and yet Who 
imparts such a " spirit " to those who practise gospel poverty, 
that they are " as needy, yet enriching many; as having nothing, 
yet possessing all things" (2 Cor. vi. 10). 

Holy poverty is closely related to holy wisdom. It is taught 
by the Spirit of God as follows : " And if riches be desired in 
life, what is richer than wisdom which maketh all things?" 
(Wisd. viii. 5.) Certainly this is not human wisdom — that a 
man gains more by losing than by keeping the wealth of this 
world. Yet St. Paul bids us : " Remember the word of the Lord 
Jesus how He said : It is a more blessed thing to give than to 
receive" (Acts xx. 35). Even among the better sort of un- 
christian men, there is no lack of perception of the elevation 
of spirit due to disinterestedness. St. Justin Martyr, whilst yet 
a pagan, had great love of wisdom. He once engaged the 
services of a teacher of philosophy, but when his teacher ques- 
tioned him about the amount of his salary, Justin concluded he 
was no philosopher and left him. Now if philosophy and money 
are so ill-sorted, what shall we say of Christian perfection and 
money? Be careful; many a soul longing for God's truth is 
hindered by the scandalous money getting of its teachers. 

St. Francis de Sales cherished this motto : " It is better to 



POVERTY 



279 



desire little than to possess much." Do you think : do you sup- 
pose that when the Blessed Virgin saw her Child so poorly clad, 
so rudely lodged, and suffering from the cold — do you suppose 
she said to herself : I wish we were rich ? The late Bishop Ulla- 
thorne said that " no undertaking for God's honor was of any 
worth unless begun in a garret or in a cellar." Bid not the 
Son of God teach this wisdom by beginning our salvation in a 
stable? This state of life, namely, the want of all luxuries, 
even of some things usually deemed necessary, the lack of pro- 
vision for the future, the plain evidence of all concerned that one 
is almost penniless, the constant struggle even for commonest 
conveniences — in a word the state of actual poverty is despised 
by many, and hated and feared by nearly the whole world. Is 
this wise? Jesus Christ loved that state deeply; He embraced 
it ; He deepened its dark sorrows ; He undertakes to teach its 
wisdom to His favorites, both by counsel and example evermore. 

Holy poverty's reward is thus promised by our Savior: 
" Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, 
or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for My name's sake, shall 
receive a hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting" (Matt, 
xix. 29). The Apostles to whom our Savior was speaking, 
had given up nets and boats to follow Him in poverty, and they 
received graces more precious than can be described. They gave 
up " their father Zebedee," and in return they received their 
Master's Father as their own in a peculiarly intimate relationship. 
St. Bernard says : " Has not he received a hundredfold of every- 
thing who is filled with the Holy Ghost, and bears Jesus Christ 
in his bosom?" Nor must we wait till we are perfectly dis- 
engaged from this world's good things before we receive our 
reward and enjoy the good things of heaven. Once we begin to 
pay down ever so little earnest money, be it nothing more than 
admiration and praise of Christ's poverty, He on His part fills 
the coffers of our mind with heavenly consolation. We follow 
Him little by little, while He loves us without stint from the 
beginning. Hardly any virtue is more capable of progress and 



280 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



development than the spirit of detachment. Love Jesus person- 
ally, and you will soon begin to love His meager way of using the 
things of this world. Love His choice for the poor as the people 
of His own state of life, in preference to those who are in easy 
circumstances, and presently your mind will reason out His 
motives; or rather His spirit will lead your thoughts pitifully 
to succor the poor. 

O how rich is he whose only possession is the Lord of all! 
When one is master of the Son of God's love, and that by divine 
right, he knows what wealth of joy really means. It is the literal 
realization of the Psalmist's claim : " The Lord is the portion 
of my inheritance " (Ps. xv. 5). 

The privilege of belonging to Christ, and of owning Christ, 
is granted to those who enter the ranks of Llis poor as far as 
their state of life will permit. For Christ's sake, live, act, travel, 
recreate, according to the ways of men in straitened circum- 
stances. Follow the examples of the saints, and take the Gospel 
maxims seriously. Emulate the more perfect Christians of your 
acquaintance. Renew often your acceptance of the Lord, and 
of His condition of life, especially at holy Mass and Communion. 



XXX. 



PURITY OF HEART. 

" Keep your eyes well fixed on your unruly inclinations to uproot 
them. Never be surprised to find yourself wretched, and loaded with 
evil humors. Treat your heart with a great desire of perfecting it. Have 
an indefatigable care to put it right when it stumbles" (St. Francis de 
Sales, Letter xlviii., Mackey Edition). 

Some years ago we heard the late Jesuit Father Pardow 
say of the Founder of his Order : " By the Constitutions of the 
Society of Jesus, St. Ignatius established his religious family; 
but by his Spiritual Exercises he became the novice master of 
the human race." 

One easily pardons the extravagance of such praise in the 
mouth of a close disciple of St. Ignatius, for the Saint's mar- 
velous system of meditating on heavenly things known as his 
Exercises, forms the best economics of holy thinking ever vouch- 
safed to devout souls. 

We refer to this because we are going to consider purification 
of heart, which is the concentration of the soul upon its defects 
as well as upon its purposes in life; and because we wish to quote 
a canon of mental prayer laid down in the preliminary directions 
of the Exercises: " Before all the contemplations and meditations, 
preparatory prayer must always be the same, without any altera- 
tion. That preparatory prayer is that I should ask our Lord God 
for grace that all my intentions, actions, and operations may be 
ordained purely to the service and praise of His divine Majesty." 
What is this but an application to prayerful method of the 
Beatitude, " Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see 
God?" (Matt. v. 8.) This far-famed rubric of meditation 
is nothing else than a prayer for purity of heart. Distinguish 
between what is wholly and what is partially given to God, and 

(281) 



282 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



you will draw the line between perfection and imperfection. Da 
it devoutly, systematically, and the human side of spiritual prog- 
ress is cared for ; God's part will not be lacking. To quote from 
another and a very great disciple of St. Ignatius, purity of heart 
" is that nudity of spirit which disposes us to be fully possessed 
by God" (Lallemant). 

Hardly any virtue has so many definitions, not a few of 
them paraphrases : Purity of conscience ; rectitude of intention ; 
reference of all to God; universality of supernatural motives; 
continual exclusion of self-interest, vainglory, pleasure, and aver- 
sion. It is the disengagement of the affections from all things to 
concentrate them upon God. Purity of heart is whole hearted- 
ness with God. 

For simplification of spiritual conduct, purity of heart holds 
high place. It is certain that if a soul can say : " My heart is 
ready, O God, my heart is ready" (Ps. cvii. 2), God will take 
possession of it. Prepare your soul, that is your part; root out 
the weeds and the Lord will plant the good grain, for " He that 
soweth the good seed is the Son of Man " (Matt. xiii. 37). Our 
only real initiative in a devout career is exterminating imperfec- 
tions. Perfect acts are directly inspired by God, or indirectly 
insinuated by the counsel and example of brethren, enforced 
by superiors or exacted by His providences. Mark well your 
part in the divine husbandry ; strictly speaking, it is only weeding. 

St. Felix, of Cantelicio, was for forty years the begging 
brother of a Capuchin convent, and was afoot many hours daily in 
his quest for food. He was once asked : " How can you remain 
recollected in divine things amid the many distractions of such 
an occupation? " He answered: " Why, brother, every creature 
of the world will raise our hearts to God, if we look on it with 
a good eye." In truth it is not the object that causes distraction, 
* but the eye that beholds it. " The light of thy body is thy eye. 
If thy eye be single, thy whole body will be lightsome. But if 
thy eye be evil, thy whole body will be darksome " (Matt. vi. 22, 
23). Purity of heart is, therefore, clearness of spiritual eyesight. 



PURITY OF HEART 283 

The difference between good acting and purity of heart, is 
the difference between clean water and a clean spring of water. 
Doubtless the intention of a right act must have been right, but 
purity of heart secures right intention originally and not by 
special advertence — secures it for all acts. In addition to rightly 
ordering one's intention here and now, one may acquire an in- 
stinctive facility, by which an habitual advertence flows forth 
over one's entire conduct, and makes purity of heart kin- 
dred to recollection of spirit, as we have seen in the Capuchin 
saint. 

The peculiar feature of this virtue, or rather of the type 
of spirituality it fosters, is in the emphasis of intention rather 
than of action. The question is, What do I mean? rather than: 
What am I doing? The practice of active virtue is restricted to 
God's evident will as exhibited in His plain commandments, His 
counsels, providences, and the imperative movements of grace. 
The avoidance of evil, be it petty or serious, is the main and only 
unrestricted external state, the doing of positive good being held 
more under discipline. Negative virtue and positive prayer be- 
come jointly the favorite condition, the only unrestricted one. 
This produces that character of mature self-control and dauntless 
purpose, to which in due time God entrusts His greater enter- 
prises ; while others make the noisier battle, this soul, like Napo- 
leon's old guard, gives the decisive stroke of victory. 

These spirits make much use of confession and particular 
examen. These well done, the positive preparations for com- 
munion need be little other than various forms or moods of 
devout receptivity. No wonder, then, that St. Ignatius seems 
to have rated his scheme of particular examens the master stroke 
of the Spiritual Exercises. A character thereby formed does not 
verge on the passive, or the do-nothing type, but rather upon the 
deliberative type. Such spirits are moved by God insensibly into 
the possession of opportunities, or are found quietly dominating 
ordinary conditions without their beginnings being so much as 
noticed. The whole career of St. Vincent de Paul illustrates this 



284 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



— at once the most quiet-minded and most energetic man of his 
era. 

A man goes to a physician because he has sore eyes. The 
doctor asks many questions, and then prescribes nothing for the 
sore eyes. He says : You have overdone ; take a rest ; eat your 
food more slowly; avoid stimulants; slow down your nerves; 
no medicine like a quiet mind; I've nothing to say about your 
eyes, the soreness comes from the low tone of your whole system. 
So do the blunders and the quarrels and the despondencies of 
many a good soul come from overdoing. Stop and think; go 
about your meditations leisurely; less haste and more purpose; 
be temperate in using stimulating devotions ; have interior house- 
cleanings at shorter intervals; seek to do the good that no one 
else is doing, but yield place readily to volunteers ; pass more 
quickly from work to prayer than from prayer to work. Let us 
realize, in a word, that spiritual sore eyes and spiritual impure 
blood are not local but general ailments — we mean the self- 
conceit and the blind antipathies and the obstinate self-will of 
good people. 

How great is the need of studying the first movements. 
Tastes and distastes ; likes and dislikes ; satisfactions and dissat- 
isfactions — whence do they spring? This can never be known ex- 
cept by quiet inner scrutiny. There are no questions in all life so 
important as these two: In what does my heart find its repose 
and contentment? And: In what does my heart find its repug- 
nances and antagonisms? 

Purification comes from on high, but not directly, for the 
grace of heart-cleansing (allowing for rare exceptions) is a grace 
of patient processes rather than of sudden transformations. 

There is an infinite difference between my soul and God, and 
yet God has destined me to know Him as really as He knows me : 
" I shall know even as I am known " (1 Cor. xiii. 12). Shall He, 
can He, refuse my prayer to know myself? Shall I not have a 
self-knowledge whose realism partakes of the fullness of God's 
own knowledge of me? Next to the privilege of the Beatific 



PURITY OF HEART 



285 



Vision, there is no boon so priceless as the knowledge of my soul's 
sinfulness, knowledge full and true and experimental. 

Self-introspection is not without its perils. But that form of 
it which seeks self-humiliation is safe. The culprit who chooses 
his own judge and then is condemned, is doubly condemned, is 
self-condemned, and easily self-amended. Self-abasement is 
always safe, for it is rational self-elevation. He that searches 
his soul to detect faults, is the only one who finds God there. 

Purification of motives, reduced to a system, and having 
place in daily exercises of piety, fits us for the guidance of the 
Holy Spirit. And, therefore, the Holy Spirit continually urges 
us to adopt some stated practice equivalent to particular examen 
of conscience. O Lord, I am aware that there is no virtue suited 
to my state of life which Thou wilt not grant me. But this good 
will of Thine is not without a condition, and alas ! that condition 
is my own good will to be made fit for such graces. Do I really 
wish to be freed from my faults — do I positively desire it? For 
while I know that Thou dost urge me, yet I cannot expect Thee 
to force me. My one resource is to begin at some one or other 
defect, single it out, study its ugliness, learn to hate it, resolutely 
set to work to root it out. One after another I can thus go on 
till I exterminate all faults in as far as they are voluntary, cleanse 
my life and purify my heart. 

If I have been a hard sinner, my return to the service of 
God begins by changing a sewer into an aqueduct. This is done 
by repentance, which changes my soul from a sink of evil to a 
reservoir of grace. After that my advancement in God's service 
consists mainly in keeping the stream of life in my soul clean 
from the taint of venial sin. 

Purifying our intentions and sacrificing our inclinations is 
usually the sum total of a pious life. Whatsoever we do, be it in 
itself high or low in the list of good deeds, is in God's reckoning 
levelled upward or downward by the double gauge of intention 
and sacrifice. Nothing we can do of ourselves is good enough 
for an offering to God ; but our least morsel of good will may be 



286 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



a banquet of the Holy Spirit, if in all simplicity it be directed for 
Christ's glory. Then let me begin at the beginning and rectify 
my intentions ; for through these, as through an aqueduct, the 
waters of life must flow. 

Experienced directors know well the misery of that headlong 
zeal for progress, which ventures on high virtues before repress- 
ing, or even acknowledging, least of all exterminating, daily 
faults. This is like spreading paint upon green wood ; when the 
wood dries, the painting though it be a Rembrant, peels off. So 
does the unripened soul lose its early virtues, which were assumed 
but not assimilated. These are not, indeed, as culpable as the 
Pharisees, to whom the Lord said : " First make clean the inside 
of the cup and of the dish, that the outside may become clean " 
(Matt, xxiii. 26) — they are hardly culpable at all; but they are 
exceedingly unwise. Let them leave to obedience the choice of 
outward good works, and meantime look carefully to the " prep- 
aration of the heart" (Ps. x. 17), which the prophet tells us the 
Lord steadfastly regards. The soul that is vigilant and jealous 
about its own little failings, constantly following them downward 
to their deepest roots, is destined to the great things of virtue — 
and it is the only soul that shall be so favored. Of course, this 
means an aggressive spirit of self-purification ; for one may have 
a low opinion of self yet rest contented, which does not betoken 
purification, but degeneracy. The promise of the Holy Ghost 
is to the earnest character: "If thou be diligent, thy harvest 
shall come as a fountain " (Prov. vi. 11). 

Few appreciate that just keeping the Commandments may be 
made a standard of high perfection. St. Paul instructs Timothy 
that " the end of the commandment is charity, from a pure heart 
and a good conscience, and unfeigned faith" (1 Tim. i. 5). As 
the elementary truth is always the most precious, so the rudi- 
mentary practice of religion is always the most essential, and the 
gift of perfect charity waits on keeping the Commandments, if it 
be done so strictly that, at last, conscience remains habitually 
unsullied. 



PURITY OF HEART 



287 



" Unfeigned faith " is restful and contented only in a heart 
purified of the littlest evil. To this exhortation to his favorite, 
St. Paul returns again and over again, and with much vehemence, 
in the same epistle (1 Tim. vi. 13, 14) : "I charge thee before 
God, Who quickeneth all things, and before Jesus Christ, Who 
gave testimony under Pontius Pilate, a good confession, that thou 
keep the commandment without spot." Keep, then, the Com- 
mandments of God in the spirit of the counsels of Christ Cru- 
cified. Once God is (so to speak) assured of this purpose within 
us, well established and practically working, Pie is content; for 
He knows that we have little besides to offer Him. 

The strength of temptation is, to a loyal heart, the measure 
of the force of resistance. Purity of intention is a form of vigi- 
lance; the nearness of danger, but develops the consciousness 
of the nearness of divine help. It is not otherwise with our 
struggles against less obtrusive, but equally perilous evils. 
These are the world, with its ever-encroaching company of 
minimizers and secularists ; the flesh, of which Father Thomas 
of Jesus says : " I live in the arms of a formidable enemy " 
{Sufferings of Jesus, vi.) ; the evil spirit, who plays both of these 
against us, with the addition of his own hatred and cunning. 
In the warfare against this unholy alliance, how free and intrepid 
is the soul, and how glorious its victories when it fights in- 
spired with absolute hatred of evil in all its grades. Such a 
spirit is needed for attaining to purity of heart. " Awake, ye 
just, and sin not" (1 Cor. xv. 34) is the war cry of our life: 
awake, watch, be quit of sin, stand at swords' points with the 
tempter. Every one of us must at every moment be ready to 
challenge the demons in our Master's words to His enemies : 
" Which of you shall convince me of sin? " (John viii. 46.) 

With the better class of souls it is the desire of pleasing men 
that divides the heart from God, according to St. Paul's words : 
" Do I seek to please men? If I yet pleased men, I should not 
be the servant of Christ" (Gal. i. 10). With the grosser spirits, 
it is the love of an easy life. The latter misery betrays its own 



2S3 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



shamefulness, while pleasing men to one's own hurt is a vice 
well disguised. For next to pleasing God there is no higher 
virtue than making men happy, but it must be done for their 
spiritual good. St. Veronica of Milan was a woman of an 
humble class in life, and with all her efforts was not able to 
read. The Blessed Virgin at last appeared to her, and told her 
that it was enough that she learn three letters. The first was 
to be the purity of her affections, placing them on God alone, 
loving no creature but in Him and for Him. The second was 
never to murmur at the sins of others, but to bear with sinners 
humbly and to pray for them. The third letter of this short 
but all-sufficing alphabet, was the setting apart of some time 
every day for meditation on the Passion of Christ. Under the 
first letter we may group all of the purifying processes of our 
spirituality, beginning with the Sacrament of Penance ; under the 
second, the concentration of all that is needed for peace and 
mutual affection with our neighbor ; under the third, the cultiva- 
tion of simplicity and uprightness of intention through the di- 
vine influence of the sacraments, especially the participation m 
Christ's Passion in holy Mass and Communion. And in all this 
our resolute purpose need not, must not, degenerate into excess 
of energy, for, as St. Francis de Sales teaches, " This is the 
height of virtue, to correct immoderation moderately " {Letters 
to Persons in the World, Mackey, p. 184). 

We speak of refinement of character, as opposed to coarse- 
ness. It means sensitiveness to our little defects of manner and 
vulgarisms of taste, making much of little proprieties, striving 
to superfine the kindliness of our bearing towards others. This 
is easily applied to the spiritual life. It is, for example, true 
refinement of soul to be instinctively conscious of a slight slo- 
venliness in our spiritual exercises. Refinement in the natural 
order is opposed to low tastes; in the supernatural order, to 
" low views " of the standard of virtue generally, or of the vir- 
tues of one's calling in particular. A refined lady or gentleman 
dislikes what is unbecoming their station; a refined Christian 



PURITY OF HEART 



289 



has a decided aversion to whatever seems in the least unworthy 
a follower of Christ. Such a one will, for instance, gladly take 
any low place in the order of personal precedence. But in 
standards of virtue, in ambition to be holy, he will be second to 
none. In all efforts to cleanse our lives of defect, regard must 
be had to the quality of the evil to be dealt with — little in bulk, 
it may be great in germ power. 

St. Anthony of the desert, when he began a holy life, would 
watch the different hermits, and ask himself why could not he 
practise this or that virtue he admired in them, and straightway 
he would undertake it; and St. Ignatius says that he also did 
the same in his earlier years. To acquire virtue thus is, per- 
haps, above our strength. But we can root out vices by that 
method. When I see a fault in another, instead of sitting in 
judgment on him, I may better follow the advice of a Kempis, 
and say interiorly : " Beware lest thou do the like thyself." 

One word of caution. All those exercises of religion which 
occupy us with our sins and their causes have for their main — 
nay, their only — purpose the acquiring of virtue. We should 
not fear vices as much as we love virtues, is the saying of a 
great saint. That caveat well heeded, we cannot be too diligent 
in our examens or too energetic in our purgations-. " The tepid 
man," writes Blessed John of Avila, " is a sluggard who prefers 
dying of hunger to working for his bread." The principal and 
everyday help that God affords us, and that which is most con- 
fidently to be relied on, is the grace to correct our faults, to at- 
tain purity of heart. 



XXXI. 

THE WORTH OF THE COMMONPLACE. 



St. Francis de Sales, that minter of both the gold and cop- 
per coin of spiritual commerce, calls attention (Devout Life, III., 
xxxv.) to the double perfection of the Valiant Woman of the 
Book of Proverbs : " She hath put forth her hands," he quotes, 
" to strong things that is, to things high, generous, and impor- 
tant, and yet she disdaineth not to " take hold of the spindle " 
(Prov. xxxi. 19). Never forget the distaff and the spindle, 
the Saint insists, even if you are gifted to embroider tapestry 
of silk and gold. Then he utters one of his immortal maxims : 
" Take care to practise these low and humble virtues, which grow 
like flowers at the foot of the cross." 

Adopting his own artless style of comparison, we notice that 
the biggest of animals, the whale, feeds on the littlest fishes in 
the sea. As to ourselves, however big may be the quantity of our 
food, it must be pulverized in our mouths before go- 
ing to the stomach for digestion; we live on many atoms 
rather than on much bulk of nutriment. 

So does the little-by-little process of virtue feed our thoughts 
unto perfection. The rule admits only of rare exceptions, such as 
miraculous conversions. Big acts of virtue, to be sure, sooner 
or later will be required of us — only to be performed after minute, 
long-drawn-out preparation. Therefore meantime, right now, 
and as a current condition, God requires the little acts. How can 
a man who repines at a headache gladly accept God's fiat of 
death ? Can one who is content to be commonly a pigmy be relied 
on to be occasionally a giant ? 

Some of us are like those public speakers who emphasize 
the chief words and slur over the little ones of their discourse. 
If you would be great, make little actions a training school for 

(290) 



THE WORTH OF THE COMMONPLACE 



291 



doing great ones. After all, perfection as a workaday grace, is 
a current force and an ordinary condition of love; perfection is 
a continuous state and a well-connected series of loving mental 
activities. Outwardly this state of soul must offer in God's 
sight the soul's correspondence with the constantly renewed op- 
portunities of virtue. These are not great but little occasions. L 

Herein is the divine worth of the commonplace. For in re- 
gard to the greater calls of God, one wisely hesitates and takes 
time, prays for light, seeks counsel. But there are no such ru- 
brics for the morning and evening sacrifice of self-denial in little 
things, the instinctive preference of another's comfort to one's 
own, the automatic restraint of an irascible temper, all for the 
love of Jesus Crucified. 

Perhaps no teaching of our Redeemer is more amazing 
than this : " For whosoever shall give you to drink a cup of 
water in My name, because you belong to Christ ; amen I say to 
you, he shall not lose his reward" (Mark ix. 40). The motive 
" because you belong to Christ " is the bridge between so cheap 
a gift as a cup of water and so glorious a destiny as the beatific 
vision. 

As hot a fire is needed to reduce a single pound of iron ore 
as a thousand tons. As divine a motive is needed to make a man 
talk gently to his peevish wife as to respond to the call of martyr- 
dom. In all orders of life the intensive outranks the extensive, 
but in none so essentially as in the spiritual life. 

It is not the money value of the threads of gold and silver 
and silk and wool (to revert to a previous illustration), that makes 
a piece of tapestry precious. And as the coloring and the group- 
ing of the tapestry are its only real excellence, so is the soul's 
motive the only real excellence of any act — a great act with a 
little motive is dwarfed into insignificance, a little one with the 
great motive of " you belong to Christ " is given an extra " weight 
of glory," be it no more than a cup of water, cr a kindly glance 
into the face of an angry man. This doctrine, as unquestioned 
as Gospel truth can make it, is a great comfort to those whose 



292 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



deepest searchings of consciousness are like the jingling of nickels 
and pennies in a poor man's pocket. The housemaid scrubs 
floors, and the doctor of divinity lectures on the Trinity; the 
difference is all in favor of the professor as to the matter, but 
as to personal merit in these employments, it may easily be 
reversed by the comparison of motive. 

As a little signet ring can bind a whole kingdom, because 
it is worn on the king's finger, so a little hand's turn of gratitude 
for Christ's sake can win entrance to the kingdom of heaven. 
Truthfulness as absolute in little things as in great, delicate shad- 
ings of kindliness in conversation, cold shivers of sensitiveness 
to the divine honor in examens of conscience, rigidity of ob- 
servance of a devout rule of life — behold perfection as far as it 
is a practical method. It is a comfort to know that God con- 
cerns Himself with all means of grace, great and little. To many 
the disenchantments wrought by a second, perhaps a very late 
conversion, will be the tardy discovery that bigness is not great- 
ness in spiritual things. 

After our Savior fed several thousands of men in the wilder- 
ness by a wondrous miracle, He said to His disciples : " Gather 
up the fragments that remain, lest they be lost. They gathered 
up, therefore, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments " 
(John vi. 12, 13). Ask these Apostles — mark you, they were 
men destined to conquer the whole world to Christ — what was 
their part in the miracle? Gathering up fragments, they answer 
proudly ; saving pieces of fish and bread that were left over. An 
honorable part, a laudable cooperation. It was all their Master 
asked of them ; and this He even commanded. What a lesson ! 
If He values the little things of His kitchen and dining-room, so 
does He value yet more the little things of His altar rail and 
confessional, our bedside prayers and our little aspirations, even 
our velleities and fleeting desires. Nay, the feeble yearnings of 
a cowardly nature are not unregarded. " The Lord hath heard 
the desire of the poor; Thy ear hath heard the preparation of 
their heart" (Ps. ix. 17). 



THE WORTH OF THE COMMONPLACE 293 

The Lord did not say : Gather up the fragments and you will 
show by their amount the greatness of My miracle. No ; but 
" lest they be lost." The petty virtue of economy was thus lifted 
unto the high throne of Gospel poverty. An enormous miracle 
, associated with a wee little virtue. We are long in learning that 
' there is such a thing as giving up all to Christ, and then wasting 
many baskets full of useful fragments. The broken victuals are 
as much Christ's virtues as the rich feastings of heroic love. 

" What do you do with all these coppers ? " a pastor was once 
asked as he was seen laboriously counting his penny collection. 
" The bank is glad to get them," he answered, "and deals them out 
to grocerymen and confectioners ; and I am glad to deposit them. 
I could hardly get along without them." The gathering of one 
sou a week from millions of poor Catholics, supports the vast 
army of our missionaries to the heathen all around the globe. 

The single miracle of Christ for which Mary is responsible 
— as far as the written record goes — was the relief of the em- 
barrassment of the Galilean bridal couple. A petty affair, was 
it not, to one like her, who is the Queen of all angels and men 
(John ii.). And consider the life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph at 
Nazareth. Every day, twice, at least, Mary swept and dusted ; she 
always saved odds and ends of food. She fed chickens and doves, 
darned and stitched, and constantly " took hold of the spindle." 

Jesus, meanwhile, was first an apprentice and then a partner, 
finally the sole workman in a country carpenter shop. All these 
thirty years of littleness was His training — humanly speaking — 
to teach the Apostles how to discourse upon " the wonderful 
works of God" (Acts ii. 11). None more wonderful than the 
humble works of Jesus at Nazareth for thirty years. 

Consider that it takes as much power to create a grain of 
sand as the sun in heaven. And consider this: whosoever is 
careful about the little things of God, will necessarily value great 
ones with holiest reverence; but not (necessarily) vice versa. 
Therefore says the Wise Man: " He that feareth God, neglecteth 
nothing" (Eccles. vii. 19). 



294 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Notice what Jesus did when He raised to life the dead daugh- 
ter of Jairus (Mark v.). They were also astonished at seeing 
the corpse rise up and walk, that they forgot to care for her 
wants. Not so Jesus. He immediately commanded that some 
food should be given her. Raising the dead to life did not 
hinder His care for her comfort: here is a majesty of love in 
which the great does not hinder the little. 

He learned all this (as we may say) in the divine school 
of His Father ; for He tells us that by Him all the hairs of our 
head are numbered (Matt. x. 30) ; that He counts the little spar- 
rows that fall from the housetop ; and safeguards even the iotas 
and jots and tittles of His law, till all be fulfilled (Matt. v. 18). 
He learned this holy littleness, as we have seen, from His 
Mother; and from St. Joseph, saving the little pieces of board 
after the day's work, hunting for a lost nail, bringing in the 
small strips and shavings to Mary to kindle the hearth fire. Here 
it was — oh, what a divine truth! — that Jesus was made accus- 
tomed to say to His disciples : " Gather up the fragments " for 
the love of God ; do not be wasteful of the least trifling good ; 
bear in mind that two mites may mark the whole merit of a 
distinguished contributor to the divine treasury of virtue (Luke 
xxi. 3). Like the sweepings of a goldsmith's shop, the waste 
and leavings of a soul working for God form a precious spiritual 
asset. 

Herein we note the relation of natural virtues to their divine 
counterparts, the supernatural ones : the natural minister to the 
supernatural. For example, kindness is handmaid to charity 
and frugality to holy poverty. Frugality is a tender to poverty. 
A great battleship goes to sea accompanied by a tender, an un- 
armed ship full of supplies and ammunition. She is not a war- 
ship, yet she is necessary for offering battle ; a battleship dare 
not risk an engagement without such a consort. So frugality 
is not in itself a Christian virtue, but it carries along holy pov- 
erty's supplies and ammunition. As Nazareth was the school of 
Calvary, so the household is the school of the monastery. The 



THE WORTH OF THE COMMONPLACE 



widow's mites were saved by commonplace frugality and in- 
vested by divine charity. Alas for the home in which little 
economies are despised, or for the soul in which little devotional 
practices are ridiculed. 

This applies with special force to the virtue of chastity, 
which, as a divine trait, is so well served by the natural trait of 
modesty. We are familiar with the frequent case of converts, 
whose cleanliness of soul plainly has won for them the nuptials 
of the Lamb in the grace of conversion to the true faith. Their 
native instinct of sexual refinement they cherished for its own 
sake, and God now endows them with the chastity of " the 
angels of God in heaven" (Matt. xxii. 30). Even of the licen- 
tious man, who is yet ashamed of himself and manages to keep 
up appearances, we may cherish hope; his bad practices are 
against his good principles, which will yet prevail. And good 
Christians shall have no small reward for their small purities. 
They fear and avoid what is not exactly unchaste, but yet not 
quite pure — a double meaning word, a doubtful article in a 
newspaper. 

In old times a knight would wear his lady's glove in his 
helmet, or her kerchief — not her golden brooch. So we cannot 
have the jewels of Mary's purity, yet she makes us welcome to 
her clean manners and speech and looks. Of all virtues, purity 
is the one that has no small change for the barter of life; its 
pennies are golden. Purity is to be practised in the minutest 
particulars. 

Humility and obedience gain immeasurably by attention to 
details. Petty observances gain a noble dignity from a noble 
motive. Nobility of obedience is shown by refusing interpre- 
tations and going right on to simple conformity. St. Peter 
Fabre, while suffering from the beginnings of a malady which 
proved to be his last illness, received a letter from his superior, 
St. Ignatius, calling him from Spain to Italy. He was urged to 
send word of his sickness and wait for an answer. But he re- 
plied : " One may die, but one may not disobey ; " and he instantly 



296 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



set out for Rome, there to quickly die. Such an heroic inspira- 
tion is not commonly vouchsafed us. But it is no different in kind 
from the invariable inner voice, bidding us obey cheerfully a 
cranky superior; to jump up promptly in response to an un- 
timely call; to cultivate a deferential manner; and to yield 
sweetly to a bitter and imperious master. 

We read in wonder of the marvelous things our Lord re- 
vealed to St. Teresa in an almost continuous succession of ec- 
stasies — we never dream of suc/i privileges for ourselves. But 
do we remember that one of her notable books, The Way of 
Perfection, treats principally of how to say the Our Father with 
attention? Supernal wisdom was never more worthily employed 
than in the diminutive doctorate of teaching little ones how to 
prattle their prayers. Our Lord did not reproach His Apostles 
for not watching with Him throughout the whole of that awful 
night before His Crucifixion; but he did complain: "What? 
Could you not watch one hour with Me?" (Matt. xxvi. 40.) 
That I can do, O Lord, once a week anyway — or I can give Thee 
the fraction of an hour. And I can hear Mass with decent at- 
tention; and make sure of not coming late; I can recite the 
Angelus ; I can say my table prayers. 

Consider the little things of zeal for souls. One does not 
lie awake thinking of sinners, and yet one may have a kindly 
interest in them; he can and he does help others whose calling 
or whose gifts make them leaders in soul saving. He cannot 
preach a powerful sermon, but he can manage a catechism class. 
He cannot lecture on God, but he can help to get an audience for 
some one who can. He cannot write a brilliant controversial ar- 
ticle, but he can take a Catholic magazine; and he can lend it 
to his non-Catholic neighbor. 

Take the case of study. It is a noble thing when one 
studies from purely supernatural motives, originally for God, 
explicitly so and only so, exclusively and always for God. Well 
our motives are hardly so high ; saints and saintly souls do that 
way. But commonly one takes natural love of study and 



THE WORTH OF THE COMMONPLACE 297 

other natural motives, ready-made, found set and fixed in nature, 
and these he dedicates to God. Thus if by nature we possess a 
thrifty habit of mind, we easily save the pennies of knowledge, 
and the dollars take care of themselves. Hereby we win not 
extensive information of divine things, but yet a detailed and 
integral completeness in what we do know. God's gain is in 
the merchantable character of our stock in trade rather than in 
its extent and variety ; though we be but peddlers of His truth 
and love, we are not without a good percentage of commission. 

Note that in the case of Dives and Lazarus, the rich man's 
fragments were the poor man's coveted feast — coveted and 
begged — and refused. Lazarus lay at the rich man's gate, 
" desiring to be filled with the crumbs that fell from his table, 
and no one did give unto him" (Luke xvi. 21). If Dives had 
but saved out of his sumptuous feasting the broken victuals for 
a beggar's scanty meal, it would never have been said of him: 
" The rich man died and was buried in hell." He was not called 
on to invite the beggar to his banquet hall; but he was obli- 
gated at least to give him the kitchen refuse and the table waste 
for which his hungry mouth watered. He was buried in hell 
because he would not give away the leavings of his luxury. 
Jesus gave His great feast to the hungry multitude, and kept 
for Himself and His beloved Apostles only the leavings. Dives 
would not even do the reverse of this. Lie gorged himself to 
death on the dainties of luxury, and despised the famishing plea 
of the beggar for the crumbs and sweepings of the dining-room. 
Many a Catholic will surely have to suffer many days in pur- 
gatory for feasting sumptuously on the good things of holy 
faith, forgetful of the non-Catholics at his gate, languishing 
for the crumbs — the pleasant words of truth, the kindly invita- 
tions to Mass and to sermons, the little books of religion, cheap 
little gifts that would save their immortal souls. 

Fidelity to God is a permanent state only when it takes in 
little things for His sake with the fidelity due to Him in great 
things. No one was ever canonized for doing great things 



298 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



with the ease of native greatness ; but many a saint is embalmed 
in eternal memory by the divine testimony of miracles, granted 
for living a routine life with miraculous fervor. 

The prime secret of holiness is how to do ordinary actions 
with extraordinary love. The obvious advantage of this doc- 
trine, seldom known till after the chagrin of many spiritual dis- 
appointments, is that it makes the vestibule of perfection com- 
mon ground for all, whether heroes or underlings. The daily 
life of all is the average humdrum of the commonplace. No 
other novitiate is open to the most gifted, nor refused to the 
dullest of souls. Habit makes the man, and habit depends on 
a constant succession of influences; but great events and heroic 
calls are not constantly repeated, for they are rare. Little op- 
portunities to be good are always at hand, are naturally suc- 
cessive, are supernaturally distributed everywhere, and super- 
naturally blest. What is naturally present with us daily and 
hourly, God makes supernatural and providential. Habits of 
virtue, like many other habits, must come gradually and easily, 
or hardly come at all. Happy is the Christian, who, for the 
love of God, fixes his mind on the divine opportunities of home 
and business, and loses none of them for practice of virtue. 
Happy the Christians whose natural tendencies to good are in- 
sensibly made into supernatural habits of virtue. 

It is thus that it comes to pass that one is made a true serv- 
ant of God. He grows to be as avaricious of his time as a 
miser of his gold, because his time is literally opportunity for 
good, all of his time. What seems reasonable recreation to 
another, to him seems prodigal waste of a most precious com- 
modity; or rather his recreations are joyful only because they 
are the familiar means of spiritual relaxation, or of making 
others happy. He carefully saves the pennies, that is the little 
passing moments of the day. He penuriously devotes them 
to occupations useful to his neighbor ; or to sanctifying his own 
soul, whether in the quiet recollection of a religious mind, or 
communing with greater souls in spiritual reading. 



XXXII. 



EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. 

Once St. John Francis Regis came home at night, having 
spent many hours visiting prisons and hospitals, and had for- 
gotten his dinner. He was ready to faint with weakness. " Why 
did you not come home to dinner ? " he was asked. " I hadn't 
time to think of it," was the young priest's answer. May God 
grant us many priests and many laymen who forget the lapse of 
time in their devotion to eternity. Time is best used when its 
hours pass by unnoticed in our absorption in doing good. The 
higher perfection may be denned as doing the best act for the 
best motive, at the best time. In a saint's life the holiness of 
God and the sweetness of Christ are woven into acts upon the 
loom of time. 

The true man's plan of campaign is his method of going 
to God with the drift of years. But his tactics are adapted 
to the present moment alone, which has been rightly said to pos- 
sess a sacramental holiness. Look to the present hour with 
greedy purpose. Commit no sins, no, not even the least venial 
sin, nozv, leave the past to God's mercy, the future to God's 
providence. Commandments, counsels, inspirations — they all 
form the key to the lock of the present moment. Here is the 
teaching of the great Doctor of the holiness of the commonplace : 
" These little daily charities, this headache, this toothache, this 
cold, this perverse husband or wife, this breaking of a glass, 
this contempt or scorn, the loss of a pair of gloves, of a ring 
or a handkerchief, those little inconveniences of going to bed 
early, and rising early to pray, or to communicate, that little 
bashfulness we feel in performing certain acts of devotion in 
public, in short all these trivial sufferings being accepted and 

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300 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



embraced with love, are highly pleasing to the Divine Goodness, 
Who, for a cup of cold water only, has promised an eternal 
reward to His faithful servants (Matt. x. 42). Wherefore as 
these occasions present themselves every moment, we can by their 
means heap up a great store of riches " {Introduction to a Devout 
Life, Part III., ch. xxxv.). 

Of all the painful abstinences of the saints, none is so con- 
spicuous as their frugal use of time. A wise man, in the most 
practical meaning of the term, is one who has learned the worth 
of eternity by studying the value of time. So we may define 
practical wisdom as the power of fixing attention to affairs of 
the present moment with a view to future profit. The glorious 
ages of the hereafter are microscoped in the moments of the 
brightly shining now. " For/' says St. Paul, " that which is at 
present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us 
above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. 
iv. 17). Ages there will be measured by moments here. 

No one values time so justly as the man whose hours are 
the rungs of a ladder between earth and heaven, nay, of the 
ladder between the heart of our Savior on the Altar, and the 
heart of His Father. " Amen, amen," said Jesus to His first 
chosen disciples, " I say to you, you shall see the heavens 
opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon 
the Sen of Man" (John i. 51). Veritable and literal angels, 
no doubt, and they come not empty handed from the Father, 
Who gives us "every best gift and every perfect gift" (James 
i. 17). That ladder is the calendar of time. Upwards upon it 
each moment is borne a tally of some good thought, some 
kindly deed. Our acts of love are borne swiftly to Paradise by 
our guardian angels, made welcome there, because consecrated 
by our Redeemer's inspiration. The official prayer of Holy 
Church, the divine office, is denominated The Honrs, and St. 
Benedict calls it a divine labor, Opus Dei. Our routine of prayer 
is the itinerary of our pilgrimage between earth and heaven. 
O how well spent are the holy hours of such divine occupation as 



EMPLOYMENT OF TIME 



301 



meditation, visits to the Blessed Sacrament, spiritual reading, holy 
conversation, sacred silence ! 

A close watch on the coming and going of our hours, is 
the holiest form of vigilance, for " the night cometh when no man 
can work " (John ix. 4), and it behooves us to snatch as best we 
may the ever-passing opportunities for doing good things, and 
saying good words. " My Father worketh until now ; and I 
work" (John v. 17), is the heavenly pattern of strong outreach- 
ing exertion ; and the great Apostle adds this admonition : "Work 
out your salvation with fear and trembling " (Phil. ii. 12). There 
comes an hour when all opportunity is over and gone ; the blessed 
present is the work day of Jesus, His Father and ourselves for 
our soul's salvation; that salvation trembles every moment in 
the balance of eternal fate. These three immensely important 
truths are each of them separately, and all of them jointly, 
predicates of time. 

The current time and its ordinary use : behold the terms of 
life's problem. Time's stream is too deep for our feeble gaze, 
and its waves are swept beyond us by a force all supreme. When 
our Lord's disciples asked Him about the great events of their 
future, He bade them fall back on faith : " He said to them : It 
is not for you to know the time and the moments which the 
Father hath put in His own power " (Acts i. 7). But it is ours 
to know that all times and moments are in the power of Him, 
Whose whole power is exerted to give us a happy eternity for 
our faithful use of time. Therefore the very arcanum of Chris- 
tian wisdom is this : how to pass the time. Advertence to the 
lapse of time is of the essence of spiritual recollectedness. He 
seldom stumbles and never falls who is lifted onward by the 
flow of time, but, says Solomon, " He that is hasty with his feet 
shall stumble" (Prov. xix. 2). 

St. Alphonsus vowed to God never to waste any time. Few 
of even our greatest souls may safely go so far, for this precious 
commodity is thrust upon us with divine prodigality, and the least 
relaxation of attention is a costly neglect. But we can fix our 



302 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



principles uprightly in our mind. Not " come easy, go easy," but 
" hold fast all I give you " should be our attitude. It is a great 
stride forward in any virtue when its fundamental rule is rever- 
enced interiorly; some degree of diligent practice will surely 
follow. Let us realize, then, that in the divine plan of our 
everyday dwelling there is no lumber room. Father Hecker 
regretted the hours of sleep that nature demanded of him. For 
most of us, one-third of the twenty-four hours must be passed 
in the total oblivion of sleep. Two, and in some cases three 
hours, are granted by the rules of many religious communities 
for common recreation. Bodily health in a multitude of cases 
vigorously claims two hours more for merely physical exercise. 
Religion and the daily tasks of our vocation may have the rest, 
but even this is often yielded grudgingly. 

Recollectedness of spirit cultivates a grudging feeling to- 
wards the things of relaxation, not of prayer and labor, and 
rests and plays so lightly that the mind can be half in doors 
and half out of doors even in the heartiest recreation. A recol- 
lected mind never quite ceases to think of God and of doing 
good, distilling into its very amusements drops of holy aspiration. 

Time is given us for our spiritual raiment, as cloth for a 
garment, and we have to cut it and fit it and sew it on our soul. 
But our scissors seldom keep on the line between the selvage and 
the cloth. We cut into the cloth of our day in a wasteful way, 
and sometimes there is as much precious material of time wasted 
in scraps as is consumed in the garment itself. A thrifty house- 
keeper studies shape and size so carefully that the waste of cloth 
is little, and that little is carefully collected and made into a patch 
quilt ; and even the listing is woven into a rag carpet. Who cuts 
and fits his time as carefully as that? Our Lord was lavish of 
His gift of bread and fish to His thousands of followers, and He 
could spread that miraculous banquet to thousands of others with 
no effort but a thought : bread and fish were cheap to Him, and 
charity exhaustless, yet He would have no waste. When all were 
filled He said to His disciples : " Gather up the fragments that 



EMPLOYMENT OF TIME 



303 



remain, lest they be lost" (John vi. 12). The saints use their 
recreation time to better purpose than we do our hours of work. 
Their recreation is only another form of advertence to divine 
things ; their chit chat is a paradise to their brethren. What of 
our recreation, and our chit chat? Nay, what one among us 
preaches or studies or even prays with recollection? 

Another peculiarity of the saints is that they treat ordinary 
times as we treat special times. The holy hope of heaven rests 
upon doing the usual things at the usual hours, with a conscience 
habitually exacting. Progress in the ways of God is not by sud- 
den bursts of fervor, good as these are, but in the steadfast pur- 
pose to push on, and the arrangement of hours and duties with 
reference one to the other. " The race is not to the swift " 
(Eccles. ix. 11). Zeal is not hurry, caution is not procrastina- 
tion. In the fable, the hare was the swifter, the turtle was the 
steadier: which of them won the race? One prayer at the right 
time is better than two prayers at another time. The mighty 
prayer is the daily prayer. Every morning : " O God, my God, 
to Thee do I watch at break of day" (Ps. Ixii. 2), forming my 
intention and forecasting my dangers. Every evening : " I will 
water my couch with my tears " (Ps. vi. 7) in my faithful exam- 
ination of the day's faults. In the same spirit our Lord bids 
us pray: "Give us this day our daily bread" (Luke xi. 3). 
Overfeeding at meal times, and any feeding between meals, 
equally overload the stomach. Good done out of time is only 
half done. It is doubly well done when graced with punctuality. 

Fidelity to time is fidelity to God, Who is the Ancient 
of days (Dan. vii. 9). To be a spiritual laggard is to be in 
danger of the sin of sloth, which is a capital sin. Not to do timely 
good, is always to come near doing wrong, and sometimes to be 
guilty of positive evil. Many Christians do not appreciate that 
indolence and procrastination are sins and sources of sins. Slov- 
enly forgetfulness of engagements and appointments is but too 
common a fault — a spiritual malady easy to diagnose and hard 
to cure. It happens now and then that a time waster must be 



304 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



let drop by the Lord into some startling act of wickedness before 
the deeper, but less shocking, guilt of sloth can be unveiled 
and remedied. On the other hand, a soul faithful to the routine 
of a rule of life, will, in due time, be enriched by exceptional 
graces. 

Sinful habits are not a deposit of evil, and a mass of crim- 
inal foulness which we have only to cover over and bury under 
another deposit and mass of good; they are rather a gang- 
lion of perverted tendencies, a latent craving for joy in sensu- 
ality, in false liberty, in bitter hatreds. Our principal grace, 
therefore, is granted, not altogether for doing good things, but 
also for repressing evil waywardness. Or, if you will, our well- 
doing, consists chiefly in practising the virtues, most opposed 
to our besetting weaknesses, with a distinct purpose of their 
suppression. The discipline of this aggressive resistance to evil 
must range and marshal our nobler forces every day, hour, and 
minute, our salvation depending upon our being active, 
persistent, vigilant. Nor does the plan of campaign differ when 
years of fidelity and love have established a well-cut groove of 
religious observance. For then we have our penance to do, 
and we pray and labor for what Holy Church calls " room for 
true penance " spatium verce pcenit entice, lest we be at last con- 
demned to a very long purgatory. 

The days that are ours by excellence of ownership, are 
those which divine predestination has fixed as the hinges of our 
destiny, placing our names over against them in the long calen- 
dar of time — as much ours for eternal weal or woe as was that 
fateful Sunday, the day of the city of Jerusalem : " This thy 
day." When, on that day, Jesus " drew near, seeing the city He 
wept over it, saying: If thou also hadst known, and that in this 
thy day, the things that are to thy peace. But now they are hid- 
den from thy eyes And they shall not leave in thee a stone, 

upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visita- 
tion " (Luke xix. 41-44). Its dawn was bright with the splendor 
of the sun of Palestine, but its messages and their divine Herald 



EMPLOYMENT OF TIME 



305 



were not recognized, because the eyes of Jerusalem were blurred 
with passion and with pride. Likewise my day shall dawn. 
What shall I do but watch for that day, watch for the inspira- 
tion of grace, the behests of God's representatives, the tokens 
of His providence, watch and pray? I may not claim miracles, 
but I am entitled to many divine days all my own. I cannot 
create one little particle of a minute, but I know, as I know God, 
that I am granted ownership of the day of my death, at what 
date, I know not, nor at what era of my plans and schemes, only 
that it is fixed by God, Who warns me of it : " Watch ye there- 
fore, because you know not the day nor the hour" (Matt. xxv. 
13). I appreciate, besides, that I have already had other days 
quite my own — my birthday, the day of my baptism, that of my 
vocation, that of my final conversion to a devout life, of my 
acquisition of the pivotal virtue of my career. Yet again there 
are holy anniversaries, which I may know, or not know now, 
but which I shall surely know and keep sacred in heaven itself — 
festivals and retreats, and first holy acquaintanceships, days of 
calamity and of favors. New days are also before me, towards 
which I look as did Simeon of old : " And behold there was a man 
in Jerusalem named Simeon, and this man was just and devout, 
waiting for the consolation of Israel ; and the Holy Ghost was 
in him. And he received an answer from the Holy Ghost that 
he should not see death until he had seen the Christ of the 
Lord. And he came by the Spirit into the temple " (Luke ii. 
25-27). How plaintive this straining look into the future, not 
of Simeon alone, but of all the other just men and women of 
Israel. How magnificent its reward. 

The spiritual use of time is also an interior reckoning of 
its intervals. It is a living realization of the Preacher's saying : 
" All things have their season, and in their times all things pass 

under heaven. A time to be born, a time to die A time to 

weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to 
dance " (Eccles. iii. 1-4). Wisdom has become a practical guide 
when it tells what day to quit this and begin that for the love 



306 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



of God. All kinds of work it guides, nor does it cease in play. 
The saints were ruled by it in their very dreams, ordinary 
Christians make it the holiness even of meal times : " Whether 
you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory 
of God " (i Cor. x. 31). He should be a prudent and thought- 
ful soul who is God's steward entrusted with time for the bene- 
fit of His other children : " Who is the faithful and wise steward 
whom the Lord hath set over His family, to give them their 
measure of wheat in due season?" (Luke xii. 42.) Such a one 
should be often deeply, always sufficiently, recollected. A light 
character appropriates his time and that of others for human 
ends ; the divine aims of life only get what cannot be denied 
without acute remorse. A man falls finally and forever because 
at the inception of a mighty temptation he was caught in a 
wasteful mood. 

A man is rich because he has earned a vast sum ; or because 
he has inherited it. If he invest his riches wisely the mere 
lapse of time makes him richer. Such is the case spiritually 
with one whose hours and days flow into the heart of God. 
Mere watching and waiting, to a soul attentive to God, is an 
unearned increment of heavenly value. To some plants the 
very atmosphere contributes their best food constituents. God 
is our atmosphere : " For in Him we live, and move, and are " 
(Acts xvii. 28) — that is to say, in God we pass our time. 

Idle reading; idle talking and listening; lack of order in 
daily work ; confusion of occupations ; habits of procrastination ; 
too much recreation; too much sleep; irregular hours — let holy 
obedience, special and relentless obedience to a stated rule of 
life, deliver us from these enemies of our salvation or of our 
perfection. May we be possessed by a holy ambition to prolong 
work and prayer and to shorten play. The Cure of Ars for many 
years spent eighteen hours out of every twenty-four in hearing 
confessions. One day passing from the church to his house he 
sank down by the wayside, utterly worn out ; and he exclaimed : 
" I know one Christian who is glad that heaven is a place of rest." 



EMPLOYMENT OF TIME 



307 



0 how bitter is purgatory to a slothful Christian — if he be so 
fortunate as to get there! 

Now and now only can I do good. Spiritual procrastina- 
tion is the thief of time, our dearest treasure in life. Each day, 
every hour, is privileged to procure the extension of the eternal 
years. And before us lies a day and hour which shall lap upon 
the endless cycles of paradise. Once a hunter in a forest of 
Spain heard a voice singing with accents of perfect happiness. 
Following the sound he came upon a lonely hut, and at its door 
was the joyful singer — a leper picking off pieces of his decaying 
flesh. " Why dost thou sing so gaily," asked the hunter, " cov- 
ered as thou art with miserable sores and driven away from the 
company of thy fellowmen?" The answer was this: "Sir, 

1 sing for joy, that between me and God there is only this little 
wall of mud, my body. That hindrance femoved I shall be united 
to Him in perfect bliss. Seeing, therefore, how day by day my 
body melts away, I am happy." 

Fleeting time: a soul which ardently aspires to eternity 
only takes notice of its perishing moments to reckon the approach 
of final union with God in immortal life. To such St. Teresa's 
Canticle of Death expresses the occasional acuteness of the pain 
of banishment : 

Ah! what a length does life appear! 
How hard to bear this exile here! 
How hard from weary day to day 

To pine without relief ! 
The yearning hope to break away 
From this my prison house of clay, 

Inspires so sharp a grief 
That evermore I weep and sigh, 
Dying because I do not die. 

This only gives me life and strength; 
To know that die I must at length, 

For hope insures me bliss divine 
Through death, and death alone. 

O Death ! for thee, for thee, I pine ! 



3 o8 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Sweet Death! Of life the origin! 
Ah, wing thee hither soon; 
For evermore I weep and sigh, 
Dying because I do not die.* 

The anguish and pains of the death hour do not appal one 
who loves God in such very truth, that to enter His presence " in 
the light of the living" (Ps. lv. 13) has become the main desire 
of existence. 

*Caswall's translation. 



XXXIII. 



BROTHERLY LOVE. 

When two men are mutually humbled by the sight of each 
other's virtues, they have reached a good degree of fraternal af- 
fection. Still each has a nearer duty of brotherly affection. 
For at his elbow stands a saint or a sinner of his own household ; 
day and night he is in and out with relatives, or with brethren in 
religion, each one of whom is a living scourge of penance or a 
living stimulant of edification. All this is of God's ordering. 
The great Founder of orders is God, and His most ancient and 
most numerous order is the family. He is the Inspiration of 
every community rule, and the presiding influence in all good 
common work. To bear ourselves well and kindly and equably 
amid our fellows for the love of God, our great aboriginal Holy 
Founder, means the extinction of vice and the fruitfulness of 
grace within us. St. John Berchmans said : " My greatest pen- 
ance is community life ; it is the tomb of self-love." Persevere 
a gentle member of your family for the sake of Christ's love, 
and other grace of perseverance you need not seek : an outward 
life but an inward divine force. It is thus described by the prince 
of the Apostles : " The hidden man of the heart in the incorrupt- 
ibility of a quiet and a meek spirit, which is rich in the sight of 
God" (i Peter iii. 4). 

Peace of heart; gentle quiet of mind; universal well wish- 
ing: all expended upon our nearest associates — does it not seem 
easy ? Is it not happy ? Is it not its own reward ? It is the most 
precious treasure of life's voyage. My ship could unload much 
religious sentimentality and be all the more seaworthy, it could 
also throw overboard much talent of mind and sail prosperously 
and make good profit. But who would jettison one atom of 
gentleness of nature, one littlest tendency to ignore a cutting re- 

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THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



mark? 0 for a talented consoler of the afflicted! O fcr a man 
with a genius for forgetting little slights! On the other hand, 
what a devil's servant is a man or a woman in a family or a 
convent whose heart is hard, whose ugly temper is unbridled? 
The legion of devils said to our Lord : "If thou cast us cut hence, 
send us into the herd of swine. And He said to them: Go. 
But they going out went into the swine" (Matt. viii. 31, 32). 
Dissensions, suspicions, mistrust, resistance to authority, 
whisperings, gossipings, acrid disputes, personal aversions, 
unkind feelings, particular friendships, cliques, confiden- 
tial exchanges of fault-finding, how unworthy of a band 
of Christ's followers are such things as these. They are fatal 
to peace and mutual affection. These traits belong only to swin- 
ish natures, ignorant and brutish men and women, yet they are 
sometimes found amongst dwellers in God's holiest shrines. It 
is in Christian families that our Savior's sad prophecy often 
comes true: "A man's enemies shall be they of his own house- 
hold" (Matt. x. 36). The fate of such a household would be 
sealed, but that whereas a few are enemies of all the ethers, 
good and bad, so a few of a different kind are friends of all both 
good and bad — devoted friends, faithful and long suffering. 
Such a one says : When God loves us all who am I that I should 
pick and choose, loving some and not loving others? When to 
all of these my brothers and my sisters the Lord may say at the 
last day: "Come ye blessed of My Father" (Matt. xxv. 34), 
shall I say to them in this mortal life: Depart from me? 

We meet with good people who rarely see anything to praise 
except when looking at themselves ; or maybe they (and these are 
pious creatures) are afraid to praise people, lest they puff them 
up with vanity. Plow different was the Apostle of the Gentiles. 
His epistles are full of praise, and such terms as " my dearest " 
and " my best loved," " my joy and my crown," are met with 
everywhere. He is extravagant in his praise ; so some of us 
would think. Neither should we fail to give praise fcr fear of 
causing vanity. I had rather surfeit a poor man than starve him. 



BROTHERLY LOVE 



The vainglory left after praise is like the shiny soap on one's 
face after washing — better than dirt, anyway. 

How deep is the wound of original sin, that living together 
in common, even of one blood and name, we seem inevitably led 
into misunderstandings. The virtue which is able to meet and 
overcome this evil or brotherly dissension in that form of fra- 
ternal love called patience with one's own; a meek and cheerful 
bearing of one another's burdens. What hurts me in my 
brother's words is also burdensome to him, for it is generally 
due to a natural failing — a bad temper, sadness, childishness. 
Or perhaps worse, to a more injurious tendency, such as native 
uncouthness and grossness of character, forgetfulness of favors, 
sharpness of tongue. A meek acceptance of hurtful words and 
deeds from those we love is often the high watermark of the 
stream of divine grace. No lessening of affection for them 
because it happens that they cannot or will not appreciate our 
kindness — this is both the substance and symbol of the divine 
virtue of fraternal charity. Are you suspected of selfish motives 
of ambition? Can you instantly pardon such injustice? Are 
you voted and rated a clown and a dullard because you will not 
belie your convictions? Can you instantly ignore this? These 
questions and answers are an excerpt from the little catechism 
of holy love. 

The weapons of love are stronger than those of fear. Have 
you failed by scolding? by chastisements? Try love. If I think 
you want to scare me, I am instantly on my mettle, and I resist. 
But if I so much as Suspect that you want to grasp my soul's 
right hand to lead me away from danger, I am scared, indeed, 
but not by you or your admonitions, rather by myself and my 
folly and sinfulness. 

What principle of life is so noble as the love that springs 
from the divine fatherhood? The mighty truth that there is but 
" one God and Father of all " (Eph. iv. 6), makes of all nations 
under heaven that one family which acclaims Jesus Christ the 
"first-born among many brethren" (Rom. viii. 29). It makes 



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THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



of all mankind a holy community, having common ownership 
of all spiritual goods. It sees in every soul of man the living 
image of the beloved Father in heaven. It sees that soul adorned 
with the rich jewels of the blood-purchased redemption of the 
Crucified. 

Here then is the law of brotherly love ; as like unto the law 
of divine love as one twin child is like its brother : " The second is 
like to this : Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself " (Matt. xxii. 
39). A law universal, a law of emergency, a law of the heart, a 
law that is a dogma; such is the law of brotherly love. 

Once a friend in a pious mood confided to us his entire wil- 
lingness to stay in purgatory till the day of judgment: so much 
was he humbled by the thought of his past sins. But the very 
same day he bitterly complained of his lot in being forced to 
live and work with an uncongenial associate. " I feel glad," he 
said, " that I am likely to be rid of him in a couple of months." 
So this pious man was glad of a thousand years in purgatory, 
but sorry for a short unpleasant companionship in this life. He 
did not, apparently, notice the glaring inconsistency of this frame 
of mind. The truest purgatory a sinner can crave in his moments 
of compunction, is the bearing of another sinner's company. And 
the best solace of the pains of the purgatory of the present life 
is love of one's purgatorial associate. A cranky man's company 
is the cleansing fire of divine love, if we did but rightly under- 
stand things. To live peaceably with a quarrelsome friend is 
very often to bar him out of — not purgatory but perdition. 
Souls who thus act are the buffers between earth and hell. They 
are, besides, excellent convert-makers. 

The trouble often is that one does good things in a faulty 
way. A man is over zealous. He is unmindful of superiors. 
He is impatient with slower natures, and upbraids them. He 
works alone, without seeking or caring for brotherly counsel, and 
he frowns on cooperation. He had rather have hireling serv- 
ants with him than equal brethren. And hence the good he does 
is turned into evil. If persons outside profit, his intimates inside 



BROTHERLY LOVE 



313 



suffer. But the reverse of these defects will not save you from 
trouble. If you work faultlessly, your motives will be impugned. 
If you are universally submissive, if you are anxious for advice, 
if you invite or even implore cooperation, it will be said of you : 
He is shirking responsibility. Dissensions among relatives and 
religious brethren — and we are speaking of devout persons — 
spring up like weeds among the good grain, and the only deep 
searching remedy is an over-mastering tendency to be glad of 
suffering from the defects of one's providential associates for the 
love of Jesus Crucified. 

That the love of our neighbor is a law, all Christians ac- 
knowledge, little as some of them realize its pressing insistence in 
daily life. Not all, however, appreciate that it is a law with a 
penalty. And such a penalty! — lex talionis or return of injury, 
back from the injured. upon the injurer. " For," says our great 
Lawgiver, " with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged ; 
and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you 
again" (Matt. vii. 2). There is refinement of justice in forcing 
a delinquent to measure out his own punishment upon himself 
by the same measure he used in injuring his neighbor. We 
believe that purgatory will reveal some stern examples of this. 
Many would rush into the chair of judgment and gladly fulminate 
sentence against sinners; we are doing this in our talk all the 
time. Few there are who boldly stand forth as the advocate 
of an absent stranger or even friend, who is being tongue-lashed 
in conversation. Many a one in his more honest musings owns 
that there is nothing plainer than that he has less than the ordin- 
ary share of affectionateness. What a misfortune to be lacking 
in the most essential of all virtues. To make up for the lack of 
kindliness what a strong grace is needed. Are you thinking of 
a novena to gain a miracle? Postpone that, and offer a few com- 
munions for an increase of brotherly love at the expense even of 
your acute sensitiveness to justice and right. A strong sense of 
justice with but a weak sense of sympathy, is like a man with a 
strong left arm and a paralyzed right arm. 



3H 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Once in the olden time there was a community, and inspira- 
tion says of its members, that " they had but one heart and one 
soul " (Acts iv. 32). No wonder that they possessed all earthly 
goods in common, since their spiritual goods, their thoughts 
and affections, were common property. Once a religious was 
asked : " How much money did you bring to this community ? " 
She answered smiling : " I didn't bring thirty cents." But she 
was a kindly nature, busy without confusion, and never thought- 
less of the comfort of others. So she had brought a priceless 
contribution to her order, a loving heart and a quiet mind, pour- 
ing uncounted treasures into the common stock of " justice and 
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost " (Rom. xiv. 17). One 
may dispense with a dowry of money, but the dowry of love 
can never be dispensed with. The grand totality of fraternal joy 
constantly bestows itself upon one's associates, principal and in- 
terest, " from a pure heart, and a good conscience " (1 Tim. i. 5). 
While of him whose heart bubbles over with unfailing bitterness, 
whose complaints and criticisms are incessant, the word of the 
Holy Ghost is true: " The opening of his mouth is the kindling 
of a fire" (Ecclus. xx. 15). 

You may not be able to print ten words that will be read ten 
days afterward. But you can stamp into the souls of others in- 
delible records of evil. You can easily say many words, whole 
pages of bitterness, not a single sentence of which shall ever 
be forgotten, and hardly be forgiven. Yet it is a blessed thing 
that a hasty word of hot anger can be overtaken and made to 
perish by a yet swifter word of regret. " If," says the Wise 
Man, " thou blow the spark, it shall burn as a fire ; if thou spit 
upon it, it shall be quenched. Both [the breath that fans the flame 
and the spittle that quenches it] come out of the mouth" (Ec- 
clus. xxviii. 14). 

The music of a mother's voice rivals the sweetness of the 
voice of an angel. But we know not if in hell itself there be 
anything harsher than the voice of an angry woman or man. Yet 
how often is such a voice joined to a clear head and a strong 



BROTHERLY LOVE 



315 



will. Men do God's work, or try to do it, with the demon's tools, 
striving to work charity with hate's methods, inculcating piety 
with a bully's brutality, or a meddler's intrusion. In war-like 
guise some spirits seek to advance the sway of the Prince of 
Peace. Peaceful ways and means for peaceful ends should be our 
motto. " Therefore," says St. Paul, " let us follow after the 
things that are of peace, and keep the things that are of edifica- 
tion, one towards another" (Rom. xiv. 19). Before making a 
move towards good order, one should pause to consider if there 
be not a choice of means, finally selecting the peaceful way of 
patience and of persuasion. " The Lord hath given me a learned 
tongue, that I should know how to uphold by word him that is 
weary " (Is. 1. 4). O blessed learning! O blessed family or con- 
vent, which is a normal college for imparting the science and art 
of upholding the weary, and correcting the wayward with a loving 
tongue. The kerchief of Veronica wiped the face of our weary 
Redeemer on the road to Calvary. God has given each of us 
in our consoling words a kerchief to wipe away the tears of 
wayworn souls in distress. 

To teach little children well, we must study, we must practise 
long. But who ever thinks of studying how to soothe wounded 
sensibilities? or how to invite the confidence of friends suffering 
from disappointment? I had rather be a little fountain of con- 
solation than a deep river of showy learning. " You can catch 
more flies with a drop of honey, than with a barrel of vinegar," 
is St. Francis de Sales' far-famed saying. 

The positive and negative practice of this high lowliness is 
embodied in some maxims of St. Teresa : " Never, under any 
circumstances, show contempt for anyone. Never blame anyone 
without showing much discretion, humility and self-contempt.' 
Never excuse yourself except for a very just cause. Never ex- 
aggerate anything, on the contrary, give your opinion with mod- 
eration. Never assert anything without being very certain of it. 
When anyone speaks to you on spiritual subjects, hear him with 
humility (no matter how simple or ignorant he may be), and as a 



316 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



disciple, and take to yourself all the good you can glean from his 
words" {Maxims 7-17). 

Another duty is that of prayer for others; nor should we 
fail to let our beneficiaries know of this token of our love. So 
St. Paul says : " Always in all my prayers making supplication 
for you all, with joy" (Phil. i. 4). Incessant prayer for them, 
because uninterrupted thought about them : " For God is my 
witness how I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus 
Christ" (Phil. i. 8). Whenever it happens that even our dis- 
tractions in prayer are painful thoughts about friends in sin 
or error, then we have reached a good state both of zeal and 
of prayer. 

Some of us seem to think that virtue indoors our heart 
has nothing immediately to do with virtue out of doors to our 
neighbor. This is externalism with a vengeance. Quiet media- 
tion in a little corner with a little book, the book of the Gospels ; 
considering interiorly our Savior's ways and means of making 
others happy here and hereafter — this it is that makes one an 
active Christian of the right sort — the only sort that never gives 
up, and finally succeeds thoroughly well. We may well admire 
St. Paul's devoted affection for St. Timothy, " Without ceasing 
I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day. Desir- 
ing to see thee, being mindful of thy tears " (2 Tim. i. 3, 4), he 
says. Absorbed in Christ as this intense Apostle was, yet not an 
hour of the day or night but witnessed his prayer for one whom 
he called his " dearly beloved son." We know too with what 
equal devotedness he bore in mind those who were most unlike 
Timothy, the wayward members of his following; indeed the 
entire human race was ever taxing his vast power of fraternal 
love. He was a declared enemy of the bickerings which so 
commonly hinder God's good purposes among His servants. 
" For, whereas there is among you envying and contention, are 
you not carnal, and walk according to the flesh? " (1 Cor. iii. 3.) 
This he wrote to his converts. Emulation in doing good de- 
generates into rivalry, zeal becomes ambition, affection for one 



BROTHERLY LOVE 



3i7 



is spoiled by aversion for another. And although these 
communities, are not considered carnal vices, yet the Apostle 
ranks them without hesitation alongside the fleshy concupis- 
cence. The fabled philosopher's stone turned everything it 
touched into gold. Greater wealth is in the touch of that 
holy tongue which turns a friend's chagrin into a cheery laugh. 
Our Redeemer among His farewell words used these : " I have 
been among you as one who served" (Luke xxii. 27). We 
could wish no better epitaph: He was among his brethren as 
one who served. In this striving world there is but one ambi- 
tion that is not sinful, it is the ambition to excel in the lowly 
achievements of sacred peace. 

A pious, envious Christian is the most offensive of monop- 
olists, being one who gets much and gives little happiness. 
How different from St. Paul: "I also in all things please all 
men, not seeking that which is profitable to myself, but to 
many" (1 Cor. x. 33). O unselfishness, how beautiful a virtue 
art thou! privileged to make happy and restful the lives of our 
brothers and sisters, wearied in the service of God. 

This beautiful virtue may be ours if we will but ignore 
others' unpleasant traits, and drill our hearts to seek happiness 
in making others happy. Is not that easier than self-assertion. 
I feed often on the sacrament of love; shall it be easy for me 
afterwards to devour my friend's peace of soul? 

Overtenderness of heart — we call it weakness, but it is no 
weakness at all, for how else did the Son of God treat His ter- 
rible enemies? — no weakness at all, except occasionally in a su- 
perior. But a critical disposition, censorious, exacting, suspicious, 
standing on one's rights, is a grave blemish. A religious not 
readily inclined to extreme forbearance with others, has his novi- 
tiate to make over again. Our faults against peace are not sel- 
dom done under pretense of zeal. But good works are not ad- 
vanced at expense of good feeling, nor is such the notion of 
saints, for, says the Apostle : " If any man seems to be conten- 
tious, we have no such custom, nor the Church of God " (1 Cor. 



3i8 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



xi. 16). Zeal without discretion makes blunders. Zeal without 
love commits sins. 

A disobliging word ranks in the memory like a barbed 
hook, sometimes more painful to draw out than to insert. Blind 
personal aversion often leads to serious dissensions. Native un- 
couthness is punished by black looks. Good deeds of associates 
are belittled by attributing to them unworthy motives. Attribu- 
ting motives is human vivisection. 

Among the Monks of the Desert the Abbot John used to 
say : " The perfection of a hermit is his ability to endure the 
frightful solitude of the wilderness. The perfection of a monk 
is his ability to support the infirmities of his brethren." As a 
matter of fact the stab of a sharp elbow is often harder to bear 
than the loneliness of a sleepless night. Can you for the love of 
Christ accommodate yourself to the peculiarities of your family 
or your community? Then you are nigh to the kingdom of 
God. Are you ambitious of the role of peacemaker? Then 
yours is the title of a child of God. 



XXXIV. 

THE APOSTOLATE OF THE SCHOOLROOM. 

At the outbreak of the persecution of the Emperor Nero 
the Apostle St. Peter, following the advice of his associates, 
fled from the city of Rome. As he was leaving it behind him 
in the darkness of the night, he saw, coming toward him, the 
figure of his divine Master. The Apostle was amazed and dis- 
tressed, and he cried out : " Lord, whither goest Thou? " " I am 
going to Rome to be crucified," was our Savior's answer, and He 
passed by Peter and disappeared in the direction of the city's 
gate. The Apostle returned forthwith to the city to suffer mar- 
tyrdom. So, when a Christian school teacher says in his soul: 
I dread returning morning and afternoon to that torment, to 
that mob of restless, stupid, ungrateful children, let him see 
before him Jesus ready to be crucified for them anew. Forth- 
with he will gladly return to his martyrdom that those little souls 
may possess Christ's saving truth, to teach them to live well and 
to die well. 

The relation between the teacher and taught is expressed by 
the Apostle in his letter to Philemon (i. 19) : " Thou owest me 
thy ownself also." The Apostle had converted Philemon, and 
claimed his soul as a trophy of victory. Child — the teacher can 
confidently say — thou owest me thy immortal soul. And to God 
he can say: For this privilege, O Lord, I do not begrudge the 
weary hours of class. The man is indeed rich who has a valid 
title to immortal souls. If we duly appreciated what St. Paul 
meant when he said to us : " You are bought with a great price," 
we could not grudge any labor or any anguish in our vocation. 
For the price of souls is the lifeblood of the Son of God. 

Remember our Savior's final appointment of St. Peter to 

(319) 



320 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



be His chief shepherd: " Simon, lovest thou Me? Feed My 

lambs " (John xxi. 16). So everyone of the teacher's many acts 
of love paid to Jesus in his private devotions is tested by the 
same great Teacher of Christendom: " Teacher, lovest thou Me? 
Go to the classroom and feed My lambs." " With what do we 
feed these dear little lambs ? " asks St. Francis de Sales. " With 
love itself. For either they do not live, or they live by love and 
to love." Either to love God or to forfeit eternal life, this is 
their only choice. " He that loveth not, abideth in death " ( i 
John iii. 14). Love must sweeten every morsel of the bitter 
monotony of the classroom. And if anyone complains : My na- 
ture is cold; love is not in me, we answer him: that very confes- 
sion to the all-loving Jesus is a sign of latent love. O Lord 
(it seems to say) wilt Thou permit me to be forever cold and 
loveless in a room full of little hearts panting for love? Your 
daily spiritual exercises may and should give love's quiet ardor 
to your work among the children. Strongly emotional natures 
are not always the most steadfastly affectionate. The winter 
apple is the best; it is ripened by the chill sunshine of autumn, 
and mellowed by the frost of November. A cold nature patiently 
longing and praying and striving for a kindly manner, will in the 
long run become an ideal Christian teacher. 

" That I may open my mouth ? " says St. Paul, " with con- 
fidence, to make known the mystery of the Gospel. For which 
I am an ambassador in a chain" (Eph. vi. 19, 20). Who ever 
heard of an ambassador in a chain, until Jesus became a Monarch 
on a cross, and until St. Paul and all the other Apostles proclaimed 
liberty to all men with shackeled limbs, and from darksome pris- 
ons. So it is with the message of Christ delivered to His little 
ones by His ambassador in the Christian school. If he be fast 
bound in the fetters of holy self-restraint, then is his message 
that of the " liberty of the glory of the children of God " (Rom. 
viii. 21). We know not if any priest, parent or teacher can 
represent Christ except he be an ambassador in a chain of holy 
living, true obedience, humble self-effacement. The biographer 



THE APOSTOLATE OF THE SCHOOLROOM 321 



of St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, says that " her good works 
were more wonderful than her miracles." Christ taught by work 
as well as by word. His self-immolation was the consecration 
as well as the practical success of His office of teacher. And 
of many a school teacher it may be affirmed, that the steadfast 
self-conquest of his daily life is the only explanation of his suc- 
cess with his pupils. 

What a privilege it is to have these immortal beings entirely 
under your influence during the formative years of their lives! 
The child's work day is passed wholly under your guidance. 
What he gets from you is all, or nearly all, that he ever gets to 
keep unto the end. Few of us learn anything after quitting 
school. At any rate whatever is learned afterwards is but, in 
some way or other, a development of the school tasks, just as the 
big tomes of theology are only the amplification of the little cate- 
chism. To that compendium of all wisdom our Lord's words may 
be applied, that the kingdom of heaven is like to the little mustard 
seed, the least of all seeds, that yet groweth into a tree in which 
the birds of the air may dwell (Luke xiii. 19). It is the 
little grain from which the whole tree of life is grown. The 
seed that springeth up and groweth whilst he knoweth not (Mark 
iv. 27). Every lesson you teach has the fruitfulness of the Holy 
Ghost in it. One has but to plant it in the child's heart, and in 
due time shall appear the fruit of the Spirit in his life. Christian 
teacher when thou sayest of one of thy pupils : " That child is a 
thorn in my side," remember that from the thorn may blossom a 
rose dyed by the red blood of thy patience. 

The souls of children are wonderfully receptive, especially 
when they are penetrated with the grace of God. They are 
clay in the hands of the potter. No plainer proof of the divinity ' 
of the teacher's vocation could be thought of than that, by God's 
universal law all mankind must be children first, and men and 
women afterwards. All human beings are made to be taught. 
Of teachers, bad or good, the whole race are the victims or bene- 
ficiaries. When your school children pass from you into their 



322 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



struggle for existence, all their life long the remembrance of 
your words, your looks, your bearing, your discipline, will go 
with them ; every single day till their very last you will continue 
to teach them. 

Take a diamond ring and write with it upon a window pane. 
The words can never be effaced till the glass is destroyed. The 
human soul can never be destroyed, and upon it the teacher writes 
God's truth and love with the prophet's " pen of iron, with the 
point of a diamond" (Jer. xvii. i). As a beast is branded with 
his owner's name, so the soul is marked with the ownership of 
God, and this is done in the school no less indelibly than in the 
home or in the church. Eulalia was a young maiden who suffer- 
ed martyrdom in Spain in the persecution of Diocletian. When 
they began to tear her flesh with iron claws, she exclaimed, "Lord, 
they are writing on me that Thou art mine ! " As our Savior 
bore our sins cut deep into His sacred flesh by His cruel wounds, 
so would He have each of us bear in our souls, and even in our 
bodies, His name and His claim, and His doctrine and His love 
ineffaceably written. 

School tasks are painful to children and, therefore, painful 
to their teachers. The entire religion of Christ is a loving allot- 
ment of suffering in union with the crucified Son of God, and 
teachers are endowed by God with the requisite graces of mind 
and heart to make the divine process efficacious. The Apostle's 
exhortation to Timothy applies to them : " Be thou an example of 
the faithful, in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith " ( i Tim. 
iv. 12). By the word example, St. Paul describes the entire per- 
sonal influence of an instructor. 

Our Redeemer has made patience an apostolic virtue, saying 
to His disciples : " In your patience you shall possess your souls " 
(Luke xxi. 19). Is not this proved in the schoolroom? For it 
sometimes seems as if the teacher's very spirit were being 
wrenched out of his control, amid the riot of unruly children 
But victory means the welfare of the children and the perfect 
self-control of the teacher. Never forget that patient suffering 



THE APOSTOLATE OF THE SCHOOLROOM 323^ 



was chosen by the Son of God, out of all the possible means of 
our salvation, as being of supreme excellence. To endure 
injuries, to bear calmly the bitterness of disappointment, to be 
resigned absolutely under the contradictions and ingratitude of 
parents — to be and to do all this with ease and cheerfulness, is 
that part of the science of pedagogy which is wholly divine. 

The joys of teaching flow chiefly from the delightful observa- 
tion of results. The teacher and the parent, above all men, eat 
the fruit of their own vineyard. The play of truth upon reason 
in the early dawn of intelligence, can only be surpassed in beauty 
by the spectacle of the heart's earliest impulses rising upwards 
towards heaven. Another and almost rival joy is the teacher's 
consciousness of a hard task well done. At the very worst he 
makes a conquest of by far the majority of the children under his 
charge, winning them permanently to the practice of Christian 
virtue. In his trials, therefore, he can appropriate the prophet's 
words to the Almighty : " According to the multitude of my sor- 
rows in my heart, Thy comforts have given joy to my soul " (Ps. 
xciii. 19). 

St. Augustine says : " The man and the sinner are as it were 
two different things. What thou callest the man in thee, God 
made; but what thou callest the sinner, thou hast thyself made. 
Destroy what thou hast made, that God may save what He has 
made." Surely this is the true state of our existence, and it is 
our task to distinguish within us the man that God made from 
the man that man made. The teacher superintends in his pupils 
the beginnings in the life-long struggle between these rival aspir- 
ants for the soul's mastery. What gift could the Holy Spirit 
give him greater than love for the training of souls to their salva- 
tion ? To see God's image in the child's immortal soul, to preserve 
it undefaced and unprofaned by error and vice, is to see with 
God's eyes. To do one's duty by the child, is to bestow eternal 
life upon the man. Who shall be glad and rejoice in his vocation 
if not the Christian teacher; but this involves suffering. And 
how could it be otherwise? It was when our Redeemer was lifted 



3 2 4 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



upon the cross, that He drew men's hearts to Himself (John xii. 
32). It cannot be otherwise with those He associates with Him 
in His work of salvation. The apostolate of Jesus Crucified 
must be one of suffering in its every branch. Shall the apostolate 
of the schoolroom be exempt? 

The teacher is to the children the best exhibit of what Christ's 
Gospel can do — the finished product of the influence of the Holy 
Ghost acting through Church and sacraments. He shows in living 
splendor the miraculous balance between the sterner and sweeter 
virtues of God's religion; the difference between firmness and 
harshness; how to be mild without admixture of weakness; 
to distinguish between temperaments without shadow of par- 
tiality. He must love without sentimentality. He must hate vice 
yet love the vicious. Pere Lallemant says that the best teacher 
is the one that best wins the children's heart. This is not done 
by relaxing vigilance or throwing down barriers of discipline, 
but by the ineffable charm of gentleness of manner, tones of voice, 
looks, and gestures. Children do not resent discipline, even strict 
discipline ; but they must know that the teacher is impartial, af- 
fectionate, incapable of outburst of anger. They do resent in- 
justice. They have a detective's faculty for discovering a 
teacher's delinquencies — and an angel's faculty for reverencing 
his virtue, at least in the more interior parts of their soul, even 
though childish irritation overspread the surface. 

It is said that young ladies practise smiling before the look- 
ing-glass. A teacher's looking-glass is the hearts of his pupils, 
sometimes even their faces. And a powerful reflector it is, 
highly polished by the child's desire to be loved and to be 
favored. Can you win pleased looks from the faces of dis- 
contented children? Can you exact quick obedience by soft 
tones of voice? Answer these and a few more such questions 
affirmatively, and you are not far from the kingdom of God. 

Our Savior is severe against our outbreaks of ill temper. 
" Whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of 
the judgment. And whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca ! 



THE APOSTOLATE OF THE SCHOOLROOM 325 



shall be in danger of the council. And whosoever shall say, 
Thou fool! shall be in danger of hell fire" (Matt. v. 22). His 
brother: what if he said these things to his child? What if he 
said them to many children, whom God has made his pupils for 
the better and longer hours of all the days of life's beginning? 
Never, on the other hand, is affection more praiseworthy than 
when it is lavished upon the very ones by whom you have been 
teased and fretted till you are well nigh beside yourself. Re- 
member, even if you are dealing with young murderers and 
apostates, God has confided them to you with the grace to 
change them into good Christians. 

The whole sanctity of Christ's Gospel may be gradually 
distilled into the children's nature in the schoolroom by the 
teacher's words and manner under provocation. Children learn 
much by their ears and eyes used on their books and the black- 
board, and just as much, or more, by gazing and listening while 
the teacher is talking and acting, being as it were on parade be- 
fore them. And in every kind of study or of distraction, they 
learn from the rightly guided teacher the hardest lesson of hu- 
man life, namely, how to be good to others when they are bad 
to you. Christian teacher, thou art God's living speech. Thou 
art a human document of a love so divine, that Christ says of it : 
" God so loved the world as to give His Only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in Him may not perish, but may have life 
everlasting" (John iii. 16). Thou art a message from heaven 
to these little ones, who are so plainly heaven's favorites (Matt, 
xviii. 10) ; a message of salvation written and signed with the 
blood of the Crucified. Please the child's eyes and win his rev- 
erence by thy gentle dignity, and thou shalt win his heart unto 
eternal bliss. Soothe his ear and calm his restless mind with 
thy words, sweet, calm, and strong, and thou shalt place his feet 
upon the sure road to Paradise. The Apostle of the nations 
boasted : ' And my speech and my preaching was not in the 
persuasive words of human wisdom, but in showing of the 
Spirit and of power " (1 Cor. ii. 4). He here described a super- 



326 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



natural gift; one due from the Giver of all things to every 
teacher who rates his work as a divine vocation rather than a 
human profession — " the showing of the Spirit and of power " 
from above. 

It is example that both tells and enforces the influences of 
the teacher's noble heart. The Council of Trent says : " Good 
. example is a perpetual kind of preaching." You cannot talk all 
the time. But there is not a minute in which you may not in 
some way or other edify and thereby educate your pupils. None 
of the branches of knowledge that you teach can so faithfully 
convey the lesson of Christ's Gospel as the living religion that 
you yourself are. The teacher's masterpiece of art should be 
his own self. Never forget that the exhibit of the fruits of your 
personal prayer and sacrifice is part of the school curriculum. 
This rule descends into particulars, as, for example, the bridling 
of the tongue when all within one's soul is raging and flaming 
with wrath. Of the teacher and the parent more than of anyone 
else is the Wise Man's word true : " He that keepeth his mouth, 
keepeth his soul" (Prov. xiii. 3). When the day of reckoning 
comes, some of you will find that your premium teaching was 
your uncomplaining endurance of a wild rabble of children. 
And after that will come the efficacy of your calm endurance in 
class of such things as headaches. Where shall we find a pro- 
fessor of pedagogy who shall make us proficient in the art of 
ignoring an attack of indigestion through the livelong hours of 
a class day, where but in the Tabernacle ? 

When our Savior said of St. Paul that he should be a vessel 
of election to carry His name before peoples and kings, He 
added : " I will show him how great things he must suffer for 
My name's sake" (Acts ix. 16). So speaks the Holy Ghost of 
the Christian teacher at the time of his vocation. Never hope 
for really great success, especially in unpromising subjects, till 
you have worked for Christ in great suffering. Never despair 
of the very greatest success, while there is any suffering left to 
be borne. You have children to manage who are radically bad. 



THE APOSTOLATE OF THE SCHOOLROOM 327 



First, do not be so sure of that, for what seems a radically bad 
boy, often turns out a thoroughly good man. The proverb that 
" the boy is father to the man," is a fallacy as popular as it is 
dangerous. Teachers have in millions of cases proved its fal- 
lacy. What is really true is that the patient suffering and per- 
severing instruction of teachers and parents, may change the 
worst boy into the best man. Some good pedagogy, and much 
Christian patience, and your class work is a success. 

Never did anyone hear of a blacksmith who could work his 
forge without a fire, nor did anyone ever hear of a teacher who 
could advance the welfare of his pupils without a flame of love. 
Now there is no true love of any kind in this disjointed world 
of ours but that it suffers for the beloved, and suffers the more 
painfully, as if in a flame, when it is spiritual love. Hence the 
Apostle says : " Let us exhibit ourselves as ministers of God in 
much patience" (2 Cor. vi. 4). Truly pitiful is the spectacle of 
a. Catholic teacher harboring feelings of aversion towards par- 
ticular children. Can we forget that our Savior's attraction was 
for common ordinary people, and especially those who were de- 
spised by others? Can we forget that it was not for dainty- 
mannered little ones, but just for the rude children of the people, 
who were crowding and annoying their elders, that He solemnly 
uttered His preference : " Suffer the little children to come unto 
Me, and forbid them not, for the kingdom of heaven is for 
such?" (Matt. xix. 14.) 

Zeal is defined as the warmth of love. But sometimes this 
zeal is so superheated that like an overcharge of electricity, it 
burns out its own apparatus. There is a zeal that destroys our 
own kindly feelings. Superheated zeal puts discordant harshness 
into our voice. It causes threatening gestures, hasty corrections. 
All this is followed inevitably by feelings of self-reproach. Bit- 
ter disappointment, forebodings of future and yet greater trouble 
possess the soul, until despair of success with the children brings 
the final catastrophe. Let us realize that to bear with the most 
untoward conditions in oneself, and ir the little ones for Christ's 



3 28 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



sake, is often the forlorn hope, the last desperate assault that cap- 
tures the citadel. What victory is the most glorious? Is it not 
the hard won victory? Read the lives of the saints and mark that 
when all went smooth, they began to worry lest God had with- 
drawn His blessings from their holy undertakings ; nay, they be- 
gan to feel misgivings about their own salvation, unless they 
felt the cross cutting into their shoulders. 

Sometimes a teacher is so unthinking as to feel that a pupil 
has insulted him — as if the folly of a child could wound the grown- 
up wisdom of a Christian. But even so; concede that a bitter 
taunt has shot deep into the sensibilities of a teacher: what then? 
When the Christian Emperor Gratian condemned a certain man 
to death, St. Ambrose managed with much difficulty to get access 
to the monarch, and said: " Your majesty, I am here to plead 
for that man's life for the honor of God." The Emperor answer- 
ed : " That man must die, he has insulted me and my office." 
The Saint replied : " That he has insulted thee and thy office is 
all the more reason that thou shouldst forgive him." How bold a 
plea, and yet how truly Christian. So let it be with you when 
you are insulted by a rebellious, vicious child. 

A patient teacher, supposing good sense and steady adherence 
to rule, will keep good order in school with one-tenth the chastise- 
ments of an impatient teacher. The good, peaceable nature will 
not lack the iron hand of discipline, but will clothe it with the 
velvet glove of patience. He will never lack the aid of that 
mildest of beings, of Whom nevertheless the disciples exclaimed : 
"Who is this that both the wind and the sea obey Him?" 
(Mark iv. 40.) 

St. Francis de Sales addressing a much-loved friend, a school 
mistress, adds : " The angels of little children love with a special 
love those who bring up children in the fear and love of God, and 
instill into their tender hearts true devotion, as on the contrary 
our Lord threatens (Matt, xviii. 10) those who scandalize them, 
with the vengeance of their angels" {Letters to Persons in the 
World, Mackey, p. 304). 



THE APOSTOLATE OF THE SCHOOLROOM 329 



There is a pious custom in our churches of lighting a candle 
before the altar and leaving it there to burn away its blessed sub- 
stance in our stead; its light is typical of our ardent love, con- 
tinuing our worship after we, ourselves, have gone away. So 
the Christian teacher lights the triple candle of faith and hope 
and love in immortal souls, there to burn for God's sake and 
never to be quenched; its light typifies his devoted labors, and 
noble self-sacrifice, and continues his work, not in one, but in 
many souls forever. 



XXXV. 



CONVERSATION. 

Speech is silver, silence is gold. The proverb is true. 
But silvern speech is often the setting for golden nuggets of 
silent and kindly listening, and precious jewels of affectionate 
and instructive words. Conversation may be defined as the bar- 
ter of speaking for listening in both the graver and lighter moods 
of human intercourse. Conversation is too commonly looked 
upon as exclusively a relaxation. The off-hand talk of a pro- 
fessor is often better teaching than his lecture, and the mutual 
give and take of devoted friends is one of the finer processes 
of love. There is a genuine mission of conversational talk. 
Charity is its essential oil ; soothing wounded sensibilities ; cheer- 
ing the despondent and diverting their minds from sadness or 
from bodily pain; strengthening feeble resolutions; admonish- 
ing unofficially, less seriously, banteringly, unmajestically, yet 
effectively; imparting information of value as if with an atom- 
izer. Notoriously a kindly talker makes others happy ; and 
many a soul needs only to be made happy to be put on the way 
of his eternal salvation. There, is nothing that charity can do 
that it may not say. Saying things is often charity's best way 
of doing things. The desert has its holiness of silence, the 
crowd its holiness of conversation. On the wall of a certain 
house in Rome a bronze tablet bears this inscription : " On this 
corner Philip Neri chatted about God." The Roman martyr- 
ology names him the Apostle of Rome. 

The importance of words is not fully appreciated. Holy 
silence and holy speech are the swing of the pendulum of a 
devout life. How noble is the prerogative of speech, since the 
very fringes of its robe, the chit-chat of a giddy hour, are of 

(330) 



CONVERSATION 



331 



eternal value. " But I say unto you," this is our Savior's warn- 
ing against silly talk, " that every idle word that men shall speak, 
they shall render an account for in the day of judgment. For 
by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou 
shalt be condemned" (Matt. xii. 36, 37). What an ordeal! 
The living God as Judge, I the culprit, the evidence every word 
of my every conversation! Every letter I ever wrote is on file 
against me in God's court; but especially is every word I ever 
spoke going to be repeated against me there, unless I unsay it in 
a sorrowful confession, " My tongue is the pen of a scrivener 
that writeth swiftly" (Ps. xliv. 2). All our talking in this life 
is recorded in the other life — an eternal record ; unless our tears 
of contrition have eraced it from the tablets of divine justice. 

Watch two musicians preparing for an instrumental duet, 
one holds his violin and the other is seated at the piano; the 
violinist tunes his instrument to the piano, for that is fixed and 
set in its pitch. So when conversing with one who is set in his 
opinions, tune your mind to his, as far as truth permits and 
charity does not forbid, and let him perform the major part of 
the duet. That makes harmony. An occasional word will be 
your part, a very melodious part. " With them that hated peace, 
I was peaceable" (Ps. cxix. 7). The ultimate test of virtue is 
in its dealing meekly with vice. 

In conversation two things are to be considered. The first 
is simplicity, by which one makes sure of revealing his mind 
candidly, his words being the mirror of his thoughts. The sec- 
ond is charity unto edification, by which one carefully witholds 
from the mirror whatever may hurt brotherly love, and maintains 
the tone and manner of a friend in all he says. Sometimes this 
holy tactfulness is sorely perplexed; for to be candid without 
being uncharitable is not always easy. This gift is granted by 
heaven to our prayers, but especally it is the reward of a morti- 
fied life. 

Keep a close guard upon your tongue when within hearing 
of irritable friends. " Unguarded effusions," Pere Lallemant 



332 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



calls them, make up a big part of our daily faults. A witty 
tongue — O how often is it a worse misfortune than a humped 
back. It is the hardest to resist of our daily tempters. The 
inclination to raise a laugh at the expense of another is perver- 
sity disguised as humor — all the harder to resist if he be known 
to be easily offended. The derisive laughter of many means the 
secret tears of one; and you are to blame. I had rather shed a 
stalwart man's blood than draw a feeble man's tears. Still in 
repartee, sharp practice in interrupting and contradicting, is the 
footpad's skill in thrusting out his foot at the exact moment and 
sending his victim headlong to the ground. It was said of St. 
John Climacus : " He knew not what it was to interrupt another 
in conversation or to contradict." This blessed ignorance of 
colloquial trickery squares well with the teaching of the Holy 
Spirit : " In many things be as if thou wert ignorant, and hear 
in silence, and, withal, seeking" (Ecclus. xxxii. 12). The guide 
of speech is given by the Prince of the Apostles : " If any man 
speak, let him speak as the words of God'" (Peter iv. 11). 

There is a sort of joyousness that can spin a robe of rest 
and peace out of the gossamer topics of talk floating in the at- 
mosphere of daily existence. Blessed is the man who can please 
his fellows with trifles. Blessed also is the man who is well 
pleased with the light exchanges of unconventional talk. More 
blessed than all is the man who can so please others with his 
lighter vein of thoughts and feelings and narrative, as to induce 
them to pass with him into the consideration of graver things. 
He is a disciple of St. Paul, who converted many a noble soul 
from adoring demons to the worship of the one true God by his 
private discourse, and who thus catalogues our topics of conver- 
sation : " Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, 
whatsoever just, whatsoever holy, whatsoever loveworthy, what- 
soever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of dis- 
cipline, think on these things" (Phil. iv. 8). 

St. Philip Neri in praising a dear friend of his, then de- 
ceased, said: " He was accustomed to think well and speak 



CONVERSATION 



333 



better of those he dealt with." Let us extol a friend for even 
a small excellence; and praise an enemy for even a supposed 
excellence. Some seem to think the praising of another to his 
face is a mawkish weakness, but one should be ready with praise, 
and make frankness to say good things and reticence to hide 
evil things his rule. " Open rebuke," says the Wise Man, " is 
better than hidden love" (Prov. xxvii. 5). Hide hate and you 
smother it; show love and you increase it. A Christian is the 
determined enemy of two things, his own praise and his neigh- 
bor's dispraise. He is also a foe of disputes. But may not con- 
versational dispute end in instruction, or even edification? Very 
rarely. If you have something good to impart that you forebode 
may fail of a welcome, bide your time. Always to be well-man- 
nered means always to be tactful; and good manners and pru- 
dence are the handmaids of persuasion. Persuasion is a ship 
without sails ; it can move only on the gentle currents of peace- 
ful conversation. 

We know the predicament of honest Protestants about 
articles of faitH. Their rule of Gospel truth is enclosed in each 
one's private understanding; so that two persons acknowledging 
each other's sincerity and information about Christ's teaching, 
yet differing concerning its meaning, must naturally consent that 
the doctrine in question is beyond their reach. Therefore they 
must remain in doubt or array two equally competent tribunals 
one against the other. This religious impasse of Protestantism 
generates doctrinal indifferentism and undermines Christian 
faith. In our daily intercourse, however, a kindly feeling of 
toleration about matters not of faith, but of opinion, generates 
a sweet conversational indifferentism, and undermines conversa- 
tional dogmatism, which is abomination. We meet with men 
who argue the items of daily news as if they were messages 
from Sinai. Reasonable men say: Well, it is all a matter of 
opinion anyhow ; let us be tolerant. Intolerance in religious 
doctrine is a high virtue; in ordinary matters it is offensive 
partisanship. A yielding mind about persons and affairs and 



334 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



the current events of life, with a kindly purpose to oil the wheels 
of social enjoyment, is the prerequisite of a conversationalist — 
a being who soothes and instructs, because he esteems his inti- 
mates. " The flute and the psaltery make a sweet melody, but a 
pleasant tongue is above them both " (Ecclus. xl. 21). 

We have said that a witty tongue is too often not a good 
but an evil quality. Yet read the life of such a Saint as St. 
Francis de Sales, or St. Philip Neri, or Venerable Joseph Cotto- 
lengo, and see how keen wit may cut so kindly as to top off the 
imperfections of one's hearers without hurting the nerve of 
mutual affection. " How beautiful upon the mountains are the 
feet of him that bringeth good tidings and that preacheth peace " 
(Is. Hi. 7). What a holy messenger of God is a kindly man, 
who, joining in conversation, allays rancor, ends disputes, and 
knows how to chastise with one word and to caress with an- 
other. This is a role that may not be practised in all its useful- 
ness by Tyros in the spiritual career. And sometimes, to travel 
with the gifts of peace into another's mind, one must pay toll 
to his irritability and be called a fool. To reach the Apostle's 
boast: " We are fools for Christ's sake " (1 Cor. iv. 10), is never 
more easily achieved than in playing the peacemaker in acrid 
conversation. 

Many a man who despises ostentation in dress, dresses out 
his conversation with ostentatious vanities. Conversation is 
often a peacock's walk, where vainglory plumes and parades it- 
self in gaudy magnificence. Christian good manners is the glory 
of conversation. It is both bad manners and bad religion to say : 
"That's not so;" "You're wrong;" "Don't be silly;" "Can't 
you listen to reason ? " " What nonsense ! " " Try to be sensible." 
j Christ and His Gospel guide the man who hinges his arguments 
* thus : " Well, many think as you do about this ; " " Of course 
there are two sides to all such questions ; " " Doubtless there is 
much truth in what you say." Or in the case one is maintaining 
an established truth : " Well, your sincerity is of course evi- 
dent ; " " I am sure that you will weigh my reasons." But affa- 



CONVERSATION 



335 



bility is mere show unless we have real respect for those who 
differ with us about disputable questions ; and real patience 
with those who are impugning undeniable truth. Sarcasm has no 
place in Christian conversation. 

Conversation was the roadmaker of St. Augustine's mind's 
vehicle during his slow transit from error to truth, and of this 
exceedingly valuable instrument of human felicity, social talk, 
he speaks thus highly in his Confessions: " It was the talk, the 
laughter, the courteous mutual deference, the common study of 
the masters of eloquence, the comradeship now grave, now gay, 
the differences that left no sting, as of a man differing with him- 
self, the spice of disagreement which seasoned the monotony 
of comment. Each by turn could instruct or listen; the absent 
were always missed, the present always welcome. Such tokens 
springing from the hearts of mutual friends, and displayed by a 
word, a glance, an expression, by a thousand little complacen- 
cies, supply the heat which welds souls together, and makes one 
of many" {Confessions, IV., ch. viii.). 

A dogmatizer of transitory views and opinions could 
not be sadly missed from such a circle, nor gladly welcomed into 
it. Of such the holy man Job complained that they hurt him — 
they broke him "in pieces with words" (Job xix. 2). At a 
show of wild beasts this sign is posted on a tiger's cage : " Do 
not speak to the animal while he is feeding." Might not the 
same be hung about the neck of some Christians? We meet 
with people whose humor merits the menacing words of the 
Wise Man who tells of a biting laughter, a " laughter of the 
teeth" (Ecclus. xix. 27). Religious communities are wisely 
guided in enforcing silence at breakfast and public reading at 
dinner and supper. There is a man who, while he chews his 
meat with his teeth, chews his neighbor with his tongue. Do not 
make your dinner table a dissecting table of your neighbor's 
character. No wonder that St. Paul warns us against mingling 
the pleasures of bodily appetite with the hateful joys of envy 
and falsehood : " Therefore let us feast not with the old leaven 



33^ 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread 

of sincerity and truth" (i Cor. v. 8). 

When to be reticient and when to be talkative, herein is holy 
wisdom. There are stormy intervals when one can only do well 
by saying nothing : " The prudent shall keep silence at that time, 
for it is an evil time" (Amos v. 13). Silence! It is a sacred 
word. Conversation may easily become an excessive indulgence 
and a sin of indolence. How grave a loss this may be, is seen 
in calculating that one-quarter of an hour wasted daily in 
chattering amounts to a sum total which is considerable even 
in a short life. On the other hand, the same daily allotment of 
time to profitable conversation, or to devout reading, in the 
course of a few years will amount to a spiritual education. " In 
the multitude of words there shall not want sin; but he that re- 
fraineth his lips is most wise" (Prov. x. 19). There is no 
worse talk than too much talk. Talk too little, and you can easily 
piece it out; talk too much, and you cannot lessen the harm by 
recalling your words, for they are no longer your own. We 
dare not imitate the tremendous austerities of the saints ; but 
the avoidance of silly chatter may be our common ground of 
virtue with them. 

Are you appalled and abashed at the thought of imitating 
the crucifixion of Jesus ? At least you can partake both in spirit 
and in practise of his partiality for silence and retirement. 
" Jesus prayed and watched upon a mountain all night ; wept 
often; never laughed frivolously, never spoke a silly word. 
When He was accused before the governor it is said of Him: 
'But Jesus held His peace' (John xix. 9). When He spoke, 
He spoke modestly. When He made answer even to ungodly 
men, He made it gently" (a Kempis, Meditations on the Life of 
Christ). "He held His peace." The man who knows how to 
keep silence for peace' sake, for Christ's sake, is a child of God 
— a beatitudinous man. " Blessed are the peacemakers, for 
they shall be called the children of God" (Matt. v. 9). " Hold 
your tongue " is a curiously expressive English idiom. He who 



CONVERSATION 



337 



holds his tongue in a quarrel holds back a sword. But, alas, the 
tongue is as slippery as an eel. One excess of talk is alone per- 
missible — kind words about others. This annoys only the cap- 
tious. A friend of the Venerable Libermann noticed excess in 
his palliation of the faults of absent persons, and said to him : 
" After all, Father, charity is not nonsense." " There you are 
mistaken," replied the man of God, " it is justice that is not 
nonsense, but charity may sometimes be nonsense or at least 
appear to be so " {Life, Part IV., ch. iii.). 

" Speak little and sweetly, little and well, little and simply, 
little and kindly" (Letters to Religious, Mackey, p. 418), says 
St. Francis de Sales. Prince Von Moltke was an expert lin- 
guist, and conversed fluently in seven modern languages, but he 
was noted for taciturnity. A witty friend said of him : " Von 
Moltke can be silent in seven different languages." Be more 
ready to listen than to speak. Used as a balance wheel, this rule 
saves us from many a transgression. The blessed man Job 
says : " Shall not he that speaketh much, hear also ? Or shall a 
man full of talk be justified?" (Job xi. 2.) Much talk is es- 
pecially injurious for one in authority. Repress the desire of 
relieving the mind of the pressure of an unpleasant secret. " Be 
in peace with many, but let one of a thousand be thy counsellor " 
(Ecclus. vi. 6). A superior who readily discloses his heart- 
scalds is doomed. An appropriate penance for communicative- 
ness is a brief regimen of silence, as was the practice of Job. 
"What can I answer, who have spoken inconsiderately? I will 
lay my hand upon my mouth " (Job xxxix. 34). 

Those whose office calls for giving advice to others for their 
soul's good, may well adopt the rule of Blessed Henry Suso: 
" Whenever he was called to the door of the convent he applied 
himself to these four things: First, to receive everyone with 
kindliness; second, to dispatch the matter with brevity; third, 
to send the person away consoled ; fourth, to go back again free 
from detachment." Often enough the conversation even of good 
people is a very vaudeville of talk. Not always a grave defect, 



338 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



to be sure, yet the prophet warns us against buffoonery : " I sat 
not in the assembly of jesters" (Jer. xv. 17). The late Father 
Hecker was one of the pleasantest of men, and no one spent an 
hour in his charming company without failing to be instructed 
on some important spiritual matter; nor was he ever known to 
laugh loudly or to lose in his lightest moments his habitual air 
of self-restraint and recollection. 

In our penitential moods we long to make conversation a 
medium for self-accusation. Then there arises a choice between 
saying nothing at all about oneself, or confessing openly one's 
failures and impostures. Now the sound and established opin- 
ions of spiritual writers prefer silence to self-condemnation. To 
say nothing good or bad of oneself is at least safe. Ostenta- 
tious humility is thinly-disguised pride. Meekness on parade 
has vainglory for its drill master. The rule, however, has ex- 
ceptions, for self-accusation is sometimes an impulse of the Holy 
Ghost. Watch the results. Is real shame one of them? A 
longing to hide away and eat the bitter bread of self-contempt 
in solitude? This is good fruit of a good tree. But too often 
one humbles himself in his talk that his hearer may take occasion 
to exalt him, or his purpose is first to upbraid and then to flatter 
himself. Says Fenelon : " Sometimes one speaks very ill of 
himself out of a peculiar vanity; and then he is quite ready to 
be reconciled with himself : like angry lovers, who after a quar- 
rel return to each other with double the blindness of affection." 
St. Francis de Sales wrote to a friend : " As to all those wordly 
visitors who come to you, receive them with a sweet and cheer- 
ful countenance. But in order that you may mutually give news, 
entertain them as if you came from the other world. For if you 
talk to them about the happenings of the parts in which they 

live, it will be no great news to them be brief when you 

cannot do good" {Letters to Religious, Mackey, p. 352). Let 
us note here two rules of a devout man's conversation. He is a 
messenger of news from another world, and he is fresh from 
that country where all persons and all things are entirely God's. 



CONVERSATION 



339 



Secondly, he has in view the doing of good. Both prudence and 
love forbid a good man from conversing with people to kill time, 
lest the words of a Kempis comes true: " A joyful evening is fol- 
lowed by a sorrowful morning." 

There is one kind of conversation which we never regret, 
the shortest but the holiest of life, our confession. It is one of 
the dearest privileges of our religion, this immensity of confi- 
dence and intensity of truthfulness. It is joy without trifling, 
it is pleasure without reaction. Prepared in silence, uttered and 
answered in whispers, confession resounds harmoniously amid 
the jubilant chant of Paradise. Confession is the holiest use of 
the divine faculty of speech. It is the most sacred consecration 
of friendship to help our direct needs, and to advance our holiest 
interests : a sacramental conversation. 



XXXVI. 



SIMPLICITY AND TRUTHFULNESS. 

What is simplicity? Understood in a spiritual sense, sim- 
plicity is inward truthfulness toward God and outward truthful- 
ness toward man. The motive that inspires it is worship of 
God's attribute of truth. Simplicity is opposed to duplicity, a 
spiritual vice by which one's charity is not unfeigned, and one's 
standards of truth telling are erected by profit or convenience. 
Simplicity is a degree of truthfulness so high that the outward 
and inward life are one. When thought is singly and simply 
drawn toward God — when words are close fitting raiment of 
thought — then supernatural simplicity is achieved. Towards 
men simplicity is the perfection of candor, safeguarded by jus- 
tice and charity and prudence; towards God it is the adoration 
of the sovereign loveliness of divine truth. Our Savior once 
cured a man of dumbness, and St. Mark tells us that " the string 
of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right" (Mark vii. 35). 
Now by this the Evangelist means that the man was not only re- 
stored to the use of his tongue by our Savior's miracle, but to 
the right and full use of it. We may discuss profitably the 
figurative meaning of the words " he spoke right," that is to say, 
he spoke truthfully. 

There are some Catholics who never tell the truth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth, except when they go to confes- 
sion. And even then they are apt to forget that they have told 
a vast number of petty lies. The Wise Man says: " The Holy 
Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful" (Wisd. i. 5), 
and thus condemns what is ranked as the lightest form of false- 

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SIMPLICITY AND TRUTHFULNESS 341 



hood, namely equivocation. The speech of man is the overflow 
of his heart's thoughts, for " out of the fullness of the heart, the 
mouth speaketh " (Luke vi. 45). Equivocators may not be quite 
falsehearted, but the bubblings up of their heart are certainly 
calculated to deceive. That is not speaking right. To be sure 
one must now and then dodge an impertinent question, yet one 
is never allowed to tell a lie. It is better to quarrel with a med- 
dler than to quarrel with one's conscience. It is not right to tell 
a lie even to save one's life ; and shall it be right to tell a lie to 
save one's blushes ? " For thy soul be not ashamed to say the 
truth. For there is a shame that bringeth sin, and there is a 
shame that bringeth glory and grace" (Ecclus. iv. 24, 25). I 
had rather blush before a company of men for owning to the 
truth, than blush before God for being a liar. 

It sometimes happens that one must get rid of a busybody, 
whose questions are like a fishhook cast into one's vitals. Well, 
then, give an evasive answer ; say something that politely means : 
Mind your own business. That is real truth-telling, for it can- 
didly reveals your thoughts, though they are not the thought 
your meddlesome friend wants you to reveal. 

What is it that causes so many petty lies? Loquacious- 
ness. Much light talk usually means many little lies. Many men 
(and women too) are so greedy of talk that they intrude always 
and everywhere. Imitate a ship master; when the wind be- 
comes stormy he shortens sail. When you hear plenty of talk, 
take a reef in your sail, shorten your tongue. By so doing you 
will avoid petty falsehoods. " He that hateth babbling extin- 
guisheth evil" (Ecclus. xix. 5). 

It is said of St. Philip Neri: " When he had to deal with 
men of worldly prudence, he did not very readily accommodate 
himself to them. But above all he disliked having anything to 
do with double-faced persons, those who did not go straight- 
forwardly to work in their dealings. He could not endure liars, 
and constantly warned his spiritual children to avoid them, as 
they would a pestilence." A person who speaks deceitfully, 



342 



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even in trifling affairs, is like a bad boy who scatters banana peel- 
ings on the sidewalk. That same wise old St. Philip Neri says: 
" The Holy Spirit abides in candid and simple souls." 

The penalty for petty and habitual untruthfulness is, first, 
God's strict judgment. Listen to the threatening voice of Truth 
incarnate : " But I say unto you, that every idle word that men 
shall speak, they shall render an account for in the day of judg- 
ment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy 
words thou shalt be condemned" (Matt. xii. 36, 37). The sec- 
ond penalty for equivocation and all forms of deceitfulness, is 
bad fame among one's relatives and friends. " He is wholly un- 
reliable," says one. " Don't trust what he says," exclaims an- 
other, and after some years this man is marked off as a liar, and 
receives a liar's diploma. People say of him : " He is more to be 
pitied than blamed; he is hardly responsible; lying has become 
a second nature with him." " He that speaketh lies shall not 
escape" (Prov. xix. 5), says the Sage in Scripture. 

White lies and fibs, and equivocations, and all sorts of 
shabby disregard of square, candid, open-minded talk, are exces- 
sively prevalent, and are seldom made matter for a scruple. 
May the Lord touch all our tongues with the holy ointment of 
His truthfulness. 

A truth-teller is one who is simply candid, avoids decep- 
tion, makes his words fit his thoughts, loves the truth because 
it is the truth, has an acute aversion for falsehood, had rather 
suffer death than utter one. " The simplicity of the just man," 
says St. Gregory the Great, " is made a subject of derision by 
worldlings. The wisdom of this world hides one's real feelings 
by verbal trickery. It uses language to conceal thoughts. This 
is the wisdom that demonstrates the truth of falsehood, and 
shows the falsehood of truth. Men are paid for teaching this 
learning to children, and young people are drilled in it. Profi- 
cients in such shrewdness look down on their neighbors. Those 
who lack it, admire it in others and are ashamed. Unstraight- 
forwardness is called good manners. Simplicity of speech is 



SIMPLICITY AND TRUTHFULNESS 343 



considered simple foolishness " {Book of Morals, quoted in 
Office of Confessors not Bishops). St. Gregory says further 
that this astuteness and diplomacy of speech is of a piece with 
the world's views about the Gospel generally. For the world rates 
as a coward and a stupid fool one who repays injuries with kind- 
ness, and curses with blessings ; who gives up his property with- 
out a struggle, and shrinks from honors. On the other hand, 
the whole scheme of Christian life is as honest in speech as it 
is unselfish in act. A true Christian should imitate the simplic- 
ity, openness, truthfulness of God. Inspiration tells us that our 
life is built " upon the foundation of the Apostles " (Eph. ii. 
20), meaning that the guidance of the Spirit of Truth is the 
same in our life as it was in theirs: we inherit their devotion 
to truth-telling as well as the truths of their teaching. Duplic- 
ity is an abomination; it is a detestable vice to any man, but in 
a child of Eternal Truth it is an affront to the divine Paternity 
Itself. 

What does my interlocutor want to know from me? If 
prudence and charity forbid me not, he shall know what he 
wants to know precisely as it is in my mind. In dealing with my 
neighbor I must never feign or pretend. The Holy Spirit teach- 
es : " He that speaketh sophistically, is hateful : he shall be des- 
titute of everything" (Ecclus 5 . xxxvii. 23). Especially shall he 
lack self-respect, without which life, in the long run, is not worth 
living. An open character is one in whom self-felicitation may 
approach almost to a virtue. 

Christ was the Way, the straight way ; the Truth, the plain 
truth ; the Life that is lightsome : " The Life was the Light of 
men" (John i. 4). Pitiable indeed is a disciple of Christ who 
is a crooked way; an equivocal truth; whose life is a deceitful 
light to his fellows. Perfection may be defined as that delicacy 
of spiritual taste which dreads for God's sake not only whatever 
is in the least degree sinful, but whatever is even unbecoming in 
a disciple of Christ. Now a lie, as theologians affirm, is by its 
very nature an evil thing — malum in se; and it is also grossly 



344 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



out of harmony with our discipleship of the Son of God. Does 
this not rightly place far beneath us all such meannesses as 
conversational equivocations and reservations? " Be not willing 
to make any manner of lie : for the custom thereof is not good " 
(Ecclus. vii. 14). 

The two great crimes of this world were the disobedience 
of Adam and Eve and the treason of Judas. Both were herald- 
ed and ushered in by lies. The tempter said to Eve : " You 
shall not surely die" (Gen. iii. 4). Eve believed him because 
she forgot God ; this, with Satan's lie, was our race's ruin. The 
other great crime was the lying kiss of Judas Iscariot, whose 
bitter guile only our Savior's mighty love could turn to account 
for our salvation. Of that immense liar Jesus said in the Sup- 
per room : " It were better for him if that man had not been 
born" (Matt. xxvi. 24). The Evangelist shows how these two 
supreme liars were one : " And Satan entered into Judas " 
(Luke xxii. 3). Satan was a murderer from the beginning, and 
he stood not in the truth; because truth is not in him. " When 
• he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar and 
the father of lies" (John viii. 44). The Prince of the Apostles 
tells us the end of Judas, Satan's masterpiece in his dreadful art : 

"Judas being hanged, burst assunder in the midst and all 

his bowels gushed out! " (Acts i. 18.) 

Every evil thing has a lie in its heart. Apostasy and sacri- 
lege and blasphemy each proclaim a lie in the face of heaven and 
earth. Anger and hatred and revenge and pride are ambushed 
behind a perfect screen of lies. Lust wheedles and betrays its 
victim with lies. Avarice and theft are own brothers of lying, 
while intemperance revels in a delirium of lying. Perjury is 
the atmosphere of many a lawsuit, and is entirely absent from 
very few of them — perjury, which is a solemn lie, a public lie, 
one that calls on the God of truth to be its sponsor for the ruin 
of a hated antagonist. How hateful is a liar to that God to 
Whom we say in our act of faith : " Thou canst neither de- 
ceive nor to be deceived." Most evil deeds must have this ugli- 



SIMPLICITY AND TRUTHFULNESS 345 



ness painted by lies into the semblance of virtue, as a corpse 
might be rouged into the semblance of a living man. Often 
men fall so helplessly into the meshes of evil works, that, as 
they say, they must lie to make a living. Vast is that company 
of whom the Beloved Disciple says: " Without are dogs, and 

sorcerers, and whoremongers and everyone that loveth and 

maketh a lie" (Apoc. xxii. 15). 

No wonder that Holy Writ so often binds into one the two 
supreme and adorable attributes of truth and mercy in the Deity : 
" Praise the Lord all ye nations, praise Him all ye people. For 
His mercy is confirmed upon us, and the truth of the Lord re- 
maineth forever" (Ps. xxvi. 1, 2). With all our untruthful- 
ness, we still have a divinely implanted loathing for a liar. Men 
who are untruthful themselves will shoot another who calls them 
liars. Only a saint can quite overcome his wrath, when he dis- 
covers that he has been lied to. 

Lying is the common stock, the raw material of venial sins 
of many varieties. Just as truthfulness is the badge of all 
earnest seekers after close divine friendship. " Lord, who shall 
dwell in Thy tabernacle ? Or who shall rest on thy holy hill ? 99 
the royal prophet asks. " He that speaketh truth in his 
heart; who hath not used deceit in his tongue" (Ps. xiv. 1-3). 
Alas, lying is so nearly natural that it is most easily taught and 
hardly ever quite unlearned again. One loses admiration for 
truthfulness as the faculty of distinguishing between truth and 
falsehood grows dim. No vice is more likely to become a rooted 
habit; there is none that saps more fatally the noble quality of 
earnestness in well doing. The two constituents of natural hap- 
piness, self-respect and the respect of others, are insensibly less- 
ened and lowered, and too often altogether forfeited. A man 
who is a living lie cannot love his better self. When lying is 
grave it is a tornado that tears up the tree by the roots. When 
it is a venial habit it is a pest of worms devouring the tree's foli- 
age. No wonder then that true servants of God are ready to 
suffer heroically to remain truthful in conversation, and even go 



346 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



to an extreme in truthfulness that seems the very uttermost 
scrupulosity. A true man's tongue should be like an official in- 
terpreter in a court of law : sworn to convey to all listeners the 
exact meaning of the heart. A true man is straightforward; 
when there is question of sincerity of speech he is indifferent to 
what people may say of him. 

Tepidity and all spiritual cowardice breeds lying and hypoc- 
risy of a denned sort, for a lukewarm soul patronizes the fer- 
vent and would be considered as one of them. Now every at- 
tempt at disguise is in the nature of a lie, and all petty duplicities 
are venial sins. Few men are absolutely sincere even with God, 
and if they are it is because they have known how to profit by 
confession, which is the divine shrine of material truth-telling. 
We seldom meet a man who is willing to be known to others as 
he is known to himself, except to his Father confessor. Dissim- 
ulation is wrong in everyone, but it is positively the bane of the 
half-hearted Christian. It is impossible to exaggerate how much 
it hinders perfection, for all sin, be it the least or the greatest, is 
flavored with lying. The Psalmist exclaims : " I have accounted 
all the sinners of the earth prevaricators" (Ps. cxviii. 119). 
Hence a Kempis when he prays for close union with the deity, 
names the unitive force of God as mingled truth and love. " O 
Truth, my God, make me one with Thee in everlasting love " 
(Imitation, Book I., ch. iii.). Many of the martyrs for Christ 
were martyrs just for truthfulness. A mental reservation would 
have saved their lives. One little word of equivocation? No, 
rather God's infinite honor. Of them St. John heard a voice in 
his vision : " These were purchased from among men, the first 
fruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth there was 
found no lie; for they are without spot before the throne of 
God " (Apoc. xiv. 45). Every virtue loves the company of pure 
candor, and every vice sidles up to a lie. We have dwelt upon 
the sin of petty lying to illustrate our Lord's doctrine, that " he 
that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in that 
which is greater ; and he that is unjust in that which is little, is 



SIMPLICITY AND TRUTHFULNESS 



unjust also in that which is greater" (Luke xvi. 10). This may 
be the comparison of venial and mortal sinfulness, yet it is pos- 
sible that our Lord meant to compare rather the lighter and the 
grosser sorts of venial sin, the one merely weakness, the other 
transgressions done in deliberateness. 

Many men live long lives, and are never called on to per- 
form heroic virtue, but no man ever lived that was not called on 
to do some little virtuous act every hour of his life. Of these 
smaller acts of holiness, habitual candor furnishes a generous 
quota. To live is to talk, and the charm of talk is charity within, 
and truthfulness without. A passing fervor of spirit may 
enable us to do an act of heroism. But the motives of it may be 
mixed. The grandeur of the sacrifice, the dramatic splendor of 
the deed, the rare and splendid privilege of passing out of the 
commonplace into the regions of magnificent virtue — some or all 
of these easily become motives which jostle the direct thought of 
God. But to buckle down monotonously twenty times a day and 
grapple with a tendency to exaggerate in our talk, is an achieve- 
ment which rises unto, not an heroic act, but an heroic condi- 
tion. To take and do God's will as gladly in little things as in 
great, is conduct wholly divine. The suppression of our weak- 
nesses, the extinction of our pettinesses in unvarying fidelity to 
God's good pleasure, this is heroism, sublime in God's eyes, 
though hidden from human gaze. 

A submarine boat of the French navy was once lost under 
peculiar circumstances. In an experiment trip she was guided 
under the water, but never came to the surface again. Twelve 
men lost their lives in her. When she was raised and the machin- 
ery examined, it was found that a little gravel had caused one of 
the pistons to jam. The least pinch of sand in a great engine, 
everything must stop instantly to clean it out. So acts an anx- 
ious Christian after venial sin. Stop! Examine! Repent! Do 
penance! Be very guarded in the future. If he perceives that 
attachment to his own opinion causes petty untruthfulness, he 
cleans it all out by his examens and his penances ; he lubricates 



343 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



the whole apparatus of his soul with the charity of Christ Cruci- 
fied, Who said: 'For this was I born, for this came I into the 
world, that I might give testimony of the truth. Everyone that 
is of the truth, heareth My voice" (John xviii. 37). O Jesus, 
Thou eternal witness of truth, teach me to be open and sincere. 
Expel deceitfulness and equivocation from my nature by Thy 
fiery justice. Chastise me for every littlest exaggeration with 
bitter remorse. Enforce upon me Thy rule that it is never allow- 
able to speak against the truth. 



XXXVII. 



THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA. 

" There is no meaning of the word Catholic that does not 
apply to me." Such was the boast of a friend of ours, made 
many years ago, and not untruthfully. A public-spirited man 
uttered it, one looking for opportunities to do good, one who had 
been concerned in making many converts. 

What kind of Catholics do we need to-day? We need that 
kind. We need energetic men and women, seeking new means 
of doing good without despising the old ones; quietly at peace 
with God interiorly, strenuously at work for their neighbor 
exteriorly; easily joined to others in organized works of zeal, 
yet just as quickly venturing all alone upon approved activities. 

Such a one says to himself : Think of all the sin around 
me! the ignorance, the misfortune; can I sit down comfort- 
ably and never offer to help it? To him the profession of piety 
is a mockery, unless his soul rises superior to self, especially in 
matters of race and family and class. " Those words, mine and 
thine (to quote St. Francis de Sales), have little significance to a 
true Christian in any order of existence ; but in religious matters 
they are positively hateful to him." When he goes to confes- 
sion, his joy is shadowed by the thought of the multitudes absent 
from this holy shrine of pardon and peace. The joy of his com- 
munions is tinged with self-reproach, because he has not suf- 
ficiently heeded the injunction of the Master of the banquet: 
" Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring 

in hither the poor, and the blind, and the lame go out into 

the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in" (Luke 
xiv. 21-23). 

Spiritual writers tell us that the heart of man is great enough 
to contain the infinite God. If my heart contains only a handful 

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350 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



of God's creatures; merely my own family and a little circle of 
friends, surely it is not a Catholic heart. 

" There is no Sleepy Hollow in the Vineyard of the Lord," 
a zealous priest once exclaimed to his people. Yet some Catholics 
think the vineyard of the Church is a quiet out-of-the-way nook 
for peaceful repose. Such souls are often shaken out of this 
religious torpor by the onset of passionate temptation, and are 
carried away into the captivity of the evil one. There are many 
Catholics who make their faith a sort of hammock under a shady 
tree in midsummer, in which they swing comfortably, viewing 
complacently the way-worn travelers passing along the hot and 
dusty road of error. 

Little do these laggard Christians dream that every spiritual 
good is first their own to enjoy and then the property of others, 
to be imparted to them freely and generously. " Freely [that 
is to say, gratuitously] have you received, freely give " (Matt. x. 
8), was the Master's charge to all His disciples. The heritage 
you enjoy so selfishly is the common property of all men, pri- 
marily of those within reach of your voice, your pen, your ex- 
ample. No man can claim to be a brother of Jesus Christ to the 
exclusion of the rest of the divine brotherhood, which includes 
every human soul. The Catholic who hugs the truth up to him- 
self alone, is not worthy of it. 

For a Christian to look with indifference upon the vast mul- 
titudes of men and women going straight on to hell is criminal. 
Such positive and criminal indifference hardly exists in pious 
souls. But negative indifference certainly does. Many weekly 
communicants never consider the state of men's souls outside 
their own little circle. Tauler teaches that true spirituality em- 
braces with deep affection, nay, with painful interest, the souls 
of Turks and of Jews, and of heathen nations over sea. The 
" point of view " of a true Christian is that of his divine Master, 
Who died for all mankind, and Who sent His Apostles to all 
nations for all time, and endowed them with all power from on 
high to save men's souls (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20). 



THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 351 



At the hour of death, that awful moment when the iron 
hand of justice seizes us, God grant us some dear memory of 
having personated Christ our Savior to wandering and perishing 
souls. 

"Charity covereth a multitude of sins" (1 Peter iv. 8), is 
both a saying of inspiration and a universal proverb. The charity 
of the convert-maker is a compassion for souls, bearing fruit in 
Paradise. What pity is so like to Christ's as the pain of heart 
of a Christian over the pauperism of an infidel ? What love in the 
wide world of holy charity can compare with love of souls? 
St. Paul speaking of some of the men and women who labored 
with him for others' salvation, says, " Whose names are written 
in the book of life " (Phil. iv. 3). And in another place, address- 
ing his converts, he reckons up the items of his own future 
blessedness, and exclaims : " For what is our hope, or joy, or 
crown of glory ? Are not you, in the presence of our Lord Jesus 
Christ at His coming?" (1 Thess. ii. 19.) 

We read with surprise in Newman's autobiography, that 
when he was ordained an Anglican minister he had a distinct 
intention to devote his life to missions among the heathen — that 
powerful intellect, that leader of men! He was at that time a 
young scholar at the University of Oxford, a fellow of a famous 
college, already a brilliant writer, a resistless persuader of men. 
If this be laudable, this longing of Newman's heart to save the 
outcast members of the human race, this zeal in the soul of one 
of the greatest men of his age, it is also suggestive of his final 
vocation. We sincerely believe that to reward him for that 
self-denying love of mankind God gave him the true faith, and 
made him, personally and by his writings, the foremost mission- 
ary to non-Catholics since the days of St. Francis de Sales. He 
longed to bury himself for Christ's sake among the lowest races 
of men, that he might save them. God placed him upon the 
highest plane of Christian civilization, that he might lead the way 
for the conversion of the imperial races who speak the English 
tongue. 



352 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Scarcely a day passes but offers opportunity to say a plain 
word for the cause of Christ. The air is full of objections to 
religion, and every objection should be met on the spot and 
refuted; or, at least, protested against. If anyone denies in 
your hearing the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, 
the divinity of Christ, the inspiration of Scripture, it is your duty 
at once to contradict him, and to affirm these fundamental truths ; 
it is a great honor to do so. Let no man assail the truth of God 
in your presence with impunity. It is a shame that the apostles 
of the prince of liars are commonly the aggressors in such 
matters, and the apostles of the Prince of Truth dare not so 
much as lift their eyebrows by way of contradiction. 

Many a convert owes his faith and his salvation to the 
ready response, bold and free, of some obscure Catholic to the 
sneer of a Protestant bigot. It is amazing that men and women 
can piously love the truth and the practice of religion, and live 
along from day to day among blatant infidels, dumb as brutes 
in face of foul attacks on the Church. What coward is so mean 
as a pious coward? The Catholic of to-day should be a great- 
souled Christian. " I ran in the way of Thy commandments," 
says the Psalmist to his Maker, " when Thou didst enlarge my 
heart" (Ps. cxviii. 32). 

Remember that in dealing with non-Catholics about religion 
you have a bitter dose to administer. It is hard for proud souls 
to sit down and be taught as little children. None of our Savior's 
sayings is harder than this: u Amen, I say to you, whosoever 
shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, shall not 
enter into it" (Mark x. 15). Another class resists for the sake 
of the liberty of the flesh. Steeped in sensual indulgence, the 
vapors of sin obscure the light of reason; the very axioms of 
common morality are often doubted, even openly denied. Even 
under the most favorable circumstances, the humility and the 
self-restraint of the Gospel can win but a scanty victory. Now 
if the unwelcome message be delivered with a harsh voice and a 
scowling face, or with a magisterial air, or, again, with a pretense 



THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 353 



of superior learning, however plainly true it may sound, your 
hearers will be tempted to resent it. The preference of every 
soul in error is rather to defy his teacher than to argue with him. 
Once you get a non-Catholic so much as to exchange religious 
views with you calmly, you have gained half a victory. 

No man — so it would seem — fully appreciates the worth 
of his own soul, until he has dealt in the souls of others. If 
you would learn the dignity of your own immortality, observe the 
ruin of another immortal being. Mark closely the interest of the 
nobler spirits about you in your own spiritual welfare, if you 
would rise from an earthly to a heavenly valuation of your eternal 
destiny. 

There is no law more universal or more sacred, than that 
which conditions each man's salvation on the sincerity of his 
will to save another man. Therefore the ministry of saving souls 
belongs to all orders of Christians. The grace to save men per- 
vades the entire mystical body of Christ, His Church, just as one's 
blood flows as well through the littlest capillary arteries at the ex- 
tremities, as through the great channels next the heart. The grace 
of zeal for souls is not the monopoly of popes, bishops and 
priests. The stream of the apostolic vocation pours abroad in 
the Church into every Christian's consciousness, giving to each 
one his proper measure of apostolic grace and of apostolic 
responsibility. 

To love God is to be zealous for souls. " Zeal springs from 
love," says St. Augustine. Among the essential accompaniments 
of sanctifying grace, is a divinely-implanted longing to draw 
souls nearer to God. One dare not feel alone in the enjoyment 
of the grace of God. It ought to fill us with shame and remorse 
that for years we have selfishly ignored the brotherly relation be- 
tween ourselves and other men, a kinship established by the grace 
of Catholic faith. We ignore it interiorly by neglect of prayers 
for conversions, exteriorly by coldly passing in and out of the 
company of non-Catholic friends without uttering a single word 
of Catholic truth. 



354 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Let us repeat: to know ourselves with God's knowledge 
is to know our neighbor's spiritual needs with God's sympathy. 
In order to save oneself it is necessary to be concerned with the 
salvation of others. " Hast thou saved a soul ? " exclaims St. 
Augustine ; " then thou hast predestinated thy own soul." 

There is scarcely a grown-up Catholic in America of whom 
it may not be truly said: If he be worthy of a happy death he 
will secure that unspeakable favor for others. Of course, this is 
primarily true of all parents and teachers, masters and mistresses, 
brothers and sisters, as well as of many others who have close 
and loving friends. But it is also true of the whole mul- 
titude of the faithful, though in a remoter degree. For who 
that lives among unbelievers but may often command their atten- 
tion to a strong word of Catholic doctrine ? Who that is no more 
than an Easter communicant but can find some darkened soul 
ready to listen to the joyful tale of the peace and joy in the 
Holy Ghost born of a worthy communion? Who that is more 
than a nominal Catholic but can turn his kindness to the poor, his 
compassion for the sick, his sympathy with the bereaved, into 
apostolic channels ? All that is necessary to make a good Catholic 
a zealous one is a clear understanding of brotherly love. How 
pitiful to behold really good living Christians quite ignoring the 
eternal downfall of their close acquaintances, and neither by 
prayer nor word nor work intervening to save them from hell. 
Obliviousness to the worth of men's souls is one of the com- 
monest weaknesses of practical Catholics. May we not rather 
call it a vice than a weakness ? No one can long remain a fervent 
Christian who does not interest himself in the saving of souls. 
All other virtues together do not make the sum total of Christian 
character until Apostolic charity be added to them. The perfec- 
tion of the just man and the virtue of zeal for the conversion 
of sinners and unbelievers are inseparably joined together. 

What matter for thanksgiving it is to have a mind so en- 
lightened as to understand God's miracles of mercy in the life, 
death and glory of His Son, and to believe in them without a 



THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 355 



single misgiving : " Giving thanks to God the Father, Who hath 

made us worthy to be partakers of the saints in light" 

(Col. i. 12). Cardinal Newman speaks of " the dismay and dis- 
gust which I felt in consequence of the first dreadful misgiving " 
that Anglicanism was not any part of God's true Church. But 
after he had become a Catholic, indeed many years afterwards, 
he speaks of the peace and joy in the Holy Ghost that had been 
continuously granted him with the true faith : " I have had per- 
fect peace and contentment. I never have had one doubt 

It was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happi- 
ness on that score remains to this day without interruption " 
(Apologia, Part VII.). 

So says every convert. It is not so much that he has gained 
peace and possesses it, but rather that peace has gained him and 
taken possession of him, peace surpassing all understanding 
and overflowing all measure of joy. 

All Christians are familiar with that joy of pardon which 
sweetly invades our hearts after confession, the sense of for- 
giveness and of reconciliation, a miracle of gentle sweetness and 
peace. But it is reserved for comparatively few to know the 
ecstasy of conversion. The Catholic Christian Church of Jesus 
Christ ! It is mine at last. What was a superstitious dream has 
changed into a heavenly revelation of truth. And the zealous 
Catholic who makes converts, he it is who obtains that joy for 
his neophyte. It is at his command that the convert beholds 
the blessed vision of eternal peace, saying with St. Peter : " Be- 
lieving, we rejoice with joy unspeakable" (1 Peter i. 8). 

" Now there remaineth a rest for the people of God " (Heb. 
iv. 9). Faith is that rest, the first and last, the temporal and 
eternal rest of God's friends. It is enjoyed in varying degrees 
by all Catholics, according to one's spirit of inquiry and of love. 
But especially is faith a harbor of peace to a convert, for he has 
battled his way into it through the stress and storm of opposition, 
doubt, misgiving. " This is my rest for ever and ever : here 
shall I dwell because I have chosen it" (Ps. cxxxi. 14). 



356 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Some of our readers have been privileged to visit a hospital 
of the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis. They have seen those 
happy nuns, who bear a red cross on their scapular, serving the 
outcasts of humanity with Christian unselfishness, and asking 
never a penny in compensation. But do you know that they are, 
besides, efficient convert makers? A sick bed is a school of 
God's truth, and its lessons are well interpreted by these heroines 
of God's charity to the poor. 

The saintly foundress of this community, the Venerable 
Mother Frances Schervier, while called by God primarily to 
relieve bodily distress, ever looked to the highest spiritual aims. 
Her soothing of bodily ills served universally to introduce the 
saving truths of repentance, to wretched and abandoned Catho- 
lics, and of conversion to the faith of non-Catholics. Her biog- 
rapher, Father Jeiler, O.S.F., relates how she never asked 
questions about race or creed of any applicants for help, nor 
was any partiality ever shown by her or her Sisters, 
except an increase of gentle sympathy when helping Protestants, 
Jews or infidels. These " saw embodied in her and her order 
the doctrines of the Church in their noblest form, and she was in 
her own person the strongest polemical argument possible." She 
was Catholicity clothed with the charity of God. Avoiding a 
rude and tactless intrusion of her beloved religion, she yet found 
opportunities to suggest and insinuate its sacred dogmas, mean- 
time secretly appealing for aid to the Holy Spirit to infuse into 
the souls she addressed those interior sentiments which are al- 
ways the most needful for conversion. This valiant woman had 
a special love for our Redeemer's apostate fellow-countrymen, 
the Jews, and one-third, at least, of her many converts were 
members of that hard-souled people. She could say in all truth 
with St. Paul, that she felt them to be yet and forever the Lord's 
nearest of kin, " of whom is Christ, according to the flesh ; " 
and she shared the feeling of the Apostle : " The will of my 
heart, indeed, and my prayer to God, is for them unto salva- 
tion " (Rom. x. i). And what is true of her and her com- 



THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 357 



munity is equally true of all of our religious sisterhoods. 
They may be ranked among our most efficient convert makers. 

The power behind the throne is the strong statesman 
guiding a weak monarch. The power behind the platform of 
the missionary is prayer — that, as a matter of fact, is the mov- 
ing force of his lectures to non-Catholics. That is the religious 
energy of which the Apostle spoke, when he said : " The king- 
dom of God is not in speech but in power " (1 Cor. iv. 20). 

The arrow that is well feathered speeds straight. The 
lightest and weakest thing about an arrow is its feathering ; and 
this is placed farthest away from the point, which is so sharp 
and hard, and which must win deep into the mark. Yet these 
little bits of feather hold the arrow true to the aim of the archer. 
So the lecturer that is helped by the gentle prayer of his silent 
co-apostles, wins home to men's hearts. The prayers of his 
friends and of his cause's friends keep his motives pure, elevate 
him above the love of applause, guide him to the Church's plain 
doctrine rather than to his own pet theories. More : the favors 
obtained by these hidden Apostles often include the bodily 
health of the preacher, and enable him to strive manfully against 
the strain upon the nerves and the dullness of fatigue resulting 
from his strenuous labor. The whisper of secret prayer for 
conversions gives clarion force to the public discourse for 
Catholic truth. None of us should forget that conversions 
seemingly due to the most attractive preaching are really due 
to prayer. All conversions are mainly due to prayer. 

" This kind [of demon] can go out by nothing but by prayer 
and fasting" (Mark ix. 28). When shall we learn the convert- 
making force of a devout soul's prayers and sacrifices? Self- 
denial and communion with God are the secret causes of con- 
versions. The concentration of personal holiness upon the 
Catholic apostolate is its crying need. 

This especially is the case when the difficulties encountered 
pass beyond the ordinary. Then, perhaps, whole hours of 
prayer must be given, and pain of body must be offered up, as 



358 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



an essential condition of success. " Believest thou this?" If 
one aspires to more than commonplace usefulness to non-Catho- 
lics he must become a mortified man, and be full of prayer, or 
his aspirations will not be realized. And he must enlist the 
prayers of devout friends abundantly. This method, which 
may be called the intensive one, is sure of success. 

St. Anthony buried himself in a desert so remote that no 
living being could reach it without extreme difficulty. St. Philip 
Neri, on the other hand, lived by preference amid the jostling 
throngs of a crowded city, and courted the company of all. But 
the solitary saint was ever praying for conversions, and the busy 
one robbed his nights of sleep that he might pray in solitude 
for the same end. Sometimes St. Philip's bedchamber was the 
scene of his apostolate; sometimes the street corner; cloister 
he had none. " Rest assured," he said, " that nothing brings 
so much consolation and sweetness in prayer as leaving Christ 
in contemplation to find Him in the saving of immortal souls." 
When St. Anthony heard that Arianism had broken out in 
Alexandria, he journeyed day and night to the city, and ex- 
changed the holy quiet of the desert's cloister for the hard con- 
flicts of controversy, and with miraculous success. So these 
great saints prayed and worked with the mingled spirit of the 
quiet solitary, and the busy missionary. 

Often our Eucharistic Savior remains in a town for years 
with no trophies of His loving warfare but the souls of born 
Catholics, His easiest conquest. Our outside brethren love re- 
ligious truth, they long to have a clear view of it and a settled 
mind about it; and yet we do not invite them to Christ on our 
altars, or to that divinely formed society which alone can en- 
lighten and sanctify them. "Why is this?" asks a very dis- 
tinguished Catholic writer, treating of Catholic apathy. " The 
reason is that Jesus is in this world in the hands of His servants. 
As a rule, He will not act and work except so far as the devo- 
tion and sacrifice of pastors and people carry Him. As long as He 
is suffered to remain an unknown Presence, shut up, scantily and 



THE CONVERSION OF AMERICA 359 



formally honored, perhaps neglected, He is in the world as if He 
were not in it. He is the sun, but the clouds and vapors of in- 
difference obstruct His shining It is where the blessed 

Sacrament is devoutly honored by priest and people that con- 
versions are made" (Bishop Hedley's Retreat, 291). How 
better can we honor our Sacramental Savior, than by bringing 
to His feet worshippers drawn from the mass of ignorance and 
delusion everywhere around us ? 

Among the hermits of the Egyptian desert was Serapion, 
surnamed the Sindonite, from the linen wrapping which on an 
occasion of much importance formed his only garment. Hav- 
ing spent many years among the solitaries, Serapion was moved 
by the Holy Ghost to leave his hermitage and go to the volup- 
tuous city of Corinth; and there he sold himself a slave to a 
heathen magician, carefully secreting the twenty gold pieces he 
got as the price of his liberty. Doing the humblest work of a 
slave, he gradually won his way into his owner's heart, preach- 
ed Christ to him, finally converted him and his whole family. 
His master gave him his liberty; Serapion restored him the 
original purchase money — and departed. 

Next he sold himself to a rich pagan, gave the price to a 
poor widow, and in course of time converted this, his second 
master and his household to the Catholic faith — again received 
his liberty and again disappeared. He was now well dressed in 
warm garments, the season being winter and very cold. One 
after another of his garments did he give away as he came 
across shivering beggars, till at last he had no covering but his 
innermost linen underwear. In the evening he was met by some 
compassionate Christians who gazed in wonder upon the bid 
man, so dignified and gentle, and yet so woefully despoiled. 
" Who has robbed thee ? " one of them asked, as he led him into 
the warm shelter of his home. The Sindonite answered by 
holding up a little book, which he had always with him. " It 
was this book that did it," he exclaimed. It was the book of 
the Four Gospels. 



360 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



The Gospel of Christ is the greatest robber that ever was. 
Serapion is but one of a countless multitude whom its maxims 
have stripped of home and country and goods and liberty, even 
of life itself, mercilessly despoiling them of all earthly things, 
but yet enriching them with an overflowing abundance of eternal 
treasures. Until the Gospel robs us of self, we know not the 
sweet joy of zeal for souls. I must allow the Church of God to 
rob me of all personal narrowness, before I can claim to be fully 
entitled to her favors. When the graces of Holy Communion 
leave me stripped of self, and make me hungry for the eternal 
welfare of my non-Catholic neighbors, it has done its divine 
work in me ; then and not before. 



1 



XXXVIII. 



THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE. 

St. Deicolus was an Irish monk, a disciple of St. Colum- 
banus. Amidst all his austerities, the joy and peace of his soul 
shone out in his countenance. St. Columbanus once said to him : 
" Brother, why art thou always smiling?" He answered in sim- 
plicity: "Because no one can take my God from me." The 
reader will mark the note of perseverance in this holy answer. 
When we possess God there is one thing more to be desired, 
though only one : to possess Him forever. 

And here begins the mystery, for it is a dogma of Catholic 
faith that our perseverance cannot be known to us with entire 
certainty. 

Among the Canons of the Council of Trent there is one 
(No. xvi. on Justification) visiting anathema on the claim of ab- 
solutely certain knowledge of final perseverance, unless it be im- 
parted by special divine revelation. Meantime, in a previous 
explanation of this dogma, the Council combines with it the ob- 
ligation of the hope of salvation, which is to be firm and cour- 
ageous, resting upon the divine promises and the actual move- 
ments of grace shown in good works of both the interior and ex- 
terior life of a Christian. From this simultaneous condemnation 
of false assurance and praise of firm and courageous confidence, 
we perceive that it is not so much the feeling as the conviction 
of perseverance that Holy Church would censure. 

Certainty, therefore, of a happy death is not granted, cer- 
tainty, that is to say, in the Calvinistic sense, absolute and form- 
ing an essential part of the grace of justification. That is an 
error of the deadliest sort, breeding fanaticism and paralyzing 
holy fear of God. Yet if I cannot know my perseverance cer- 

(361) 



362 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



tainly enough to presume upon it, yet I can trust it surely enough 
to work out my salvation with courage, yea, even if it be to work 
it out with fear and trembling (Phil. ii. 12). My salvation is 
God's joy, His triumph, and His glory. That I know with abso- 
lute certainty. Furthermore, God's present graces are one and 
all introductory to His final ones : " He who hath begun a good 
work in you, will perfect it unto the day of Christ Jesus " (Phil, 
i. 6). One of the graces He has already granted me is a steady 
purpose to persevere, and that from the highest motive — loving 
trust in His goodness. I am now and I continue currently to be 
conscious of His drawing me towards perseverance ; and " the 
gifts and calling of God are without repentance" (Rom. xi. 29). 
If I am forbidden to overtrust my final success, I am none the 
less forbidden to undertrust the divine purpose finally to save me. 
Midway between the great virtues of faith and love stands glor- 
ious hope. 

Perseverance is not, therefore, a tormenting mystery: yet it 
is truly the great mystery of life. It causes us to distrust our- 
selves, and all mystified about ourselves to become all trustful of 
God. The least grain of uncertainty about our eternal destiny 
makes us watchful. We then hold fast to saving religious condi- 
tions, such as the love of Jesus Christ, fondness for prayer, a high 
routine of the sacraments, a sense of duty about good reading and 
good company: divinely good in themselves, these holy things 
become guarantees of permanent divine friendship. It is a prof- 
itable mystery, for it makes us value present opportunities of grace 
and virtue all the more because future ones are out of reach. 
All life is strenuous and vigilant in proportion to our apprecia- 
tion of the fact that there must ever be a shade of doubt about 
a happy death; that it is a grace separate and apart from all 
others ; that it is granted for no reason that we have anything to 
do with, anything, at least, of a causative or meritorious nature. 

One solution of the difficulty is, that we can pray for per- 
severance, can and must do so; and that the very inclination to 
pray is a dim and distant promise of the mysterious grace itself. 



THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE 363 



And it is added, that prayer for perseverance will be granted as 
inevitably as prayer for any other spiritual need. But the answer 
is patent : the prayer will be efficacious only if itself be persever- 
ing. Turn the problem which way you please, this mystic glass 
reveals God's mastery over our end as absolute as His mastery 
over our beginning. Not of the origin and destiny of the universe 
can the Lord more truly say : " I am Alpha and Omega, the 
beginning and the end" (Apoc. i. 8), than of the origin and 
destiny of each human soul. Upon Him, then, do we rely, and 
in doing so we pray, and confess, and receive Communion. Con- 
sider again the practice of prayer; by it we cannot merit the 
grace of perseverance in the absolute meaning of the term. 
" Yet," says St. Augustine, " this gift can be suppliantly merited; 
it can be obtained by praying for it." But to this relation of 
prayer to a happy end we shall return again. 

The beginning of a good work has this enduring excellence, 
that it holds within it, as it were in solution, a quality of self- 
reproduction. This by means of the constant warmth of love is 
distilled into tokens of perseverance. But, after all, it is only 
the end that crowns the work ; it alone crowns the worker. Mary 
was full of grace at Nazareth, nay, confirmed in grace from her 
immaculate conception. But the Mother of Sorrows is the full- 
ness of the divine motherhood, for it was her Son's sorrow that 
redeemed us. Perseverance is a grander work than even the 
noble act of original consecration to a devout life, for whereas 
the origin contains the end only in purpose and potency, the end 
contains the origin in its fullest development. 

No fruit of a tree is ripe unless it has ripe seeds for pro- 
ducing other fruit trees. No virtue is mature unless it has within 
it seeds " after its own kind which may have seed in itself upon 
the earth " (Gen. i. 11). The seed of virtue is a living purpose 
to practise more virtue — it is both a deed and a promise. The 
new seed may be slow in germinating, but St. Frances de Sales, 
in warning us against faint-heartedness, says that it can happen 
that only a quarter of an hour before death, we shall find ourselves 



3^4 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



freed from some imperfection against which we have vainly- 
struggled for a lifetime. 

In this state of mystery death gains and life loses in the 
division of our endeavors, or better said, eternity gains and time 
loses. Listen to a saint's estimate of life and death : " The true 
servants of God," says St. Philip Neri, " take life patiently and 
death eagerly." One of us will say : " O the sadness of life, O 
the gladness of death." Yet if the saint's patience and eagerness 
be rated equal, another might say: " O the gladness of life, O 
the gladness of death;" and thus life and death are unified. 
Herein is one of the foretastes of the grace of perseverance. 

St. Francis de Sales defines perseverance to be " the sequence 
and combination of virtues." True life is a golden chain of 
graces, every grace a link of love. When first placed, it is 
grasped by the link going before, and it lies open to grasp in turn 
the link following after. What though the open link may fall 
ofif, it is left open that it may receive another, not to be lost 
itself by the cessation of courageous resolve. Virtue is fruitful 
of virtue. 

" The threshing of your harvest shall reach unto the vintage, 
and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time ; and you shall 
eat your bread to the full" (Lev. xxvi. 5). 

One season of innocence generates longings for another, 
and this is invariable in God's changes of the spiritual seasons. 
Only it must be noticed, that whereas the farmer is glad if a good 
crop is followed by an equally good one, we are certain of a better 
and ever better harvest of virtue and of joy and of peace as the 
years go on. Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short 
races one after another. A quarter horse can win the whole race 
of life, for quarter after quarter is won till the whole course is 
won. The question of enduring to the end is just this : Can I 
renew my daily purpose of loving Christ each succeeding day? 
Perseverance is rather a matter of renewal of brief efforts than 
of endurance of extended strain. 

Thus does persistent renewal receive the crown of final sue- 



THE MYSTERY GF PERSEVERANCE 365 



cess. "I have said: Now I have begun" (Ps. lxxvi. 11), until 
at last by ever freshening purpose and action, I win out and say : 
Now I have done. Remember, too, that God is ever saying the 
selfsame words about us and repeating His favors to us, inces- 
santly renewing our graces, constantly pardoning our relapses, 
even as if He had never favored us or pardoned us before. I am 
often warned never to forget my weakness. Yet the Psalmist 
heartens me, bidding me say : " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and 
never forget all that He hath done for thee" (Ps. cii. 2). 

That God should now love me, and that He now loves me as 
God alone can love, with a divine sincerity, an infinite tenderness ; 
and that meanwhile He has it in purpose to weaken that love 
by degrees or snatch it away by a sudden wrench ; and that even 
now as he cherishes me " as the apple of His eye " (Zach. ii. 8), 
He none the less is preparing to make an example of me in 
hell — this is a thought I will not tolerate ; it is a satanic thought. 
If my end shall be ruin, it cannot be from God. Who then shall be 
responsible for my eternal downfall? who but my own self. 

Among the marks of final perseverance, none equals a life of 
perfection. The ordinary Christian in the state of grace, is too 
often like a man who, having been deeded a fine new house, walks 
around it and admires it, and proudly points it out to his friends. 
But dare he ask them to go into it? for it is an empty house, 
with not a chair or table or bed, not a morsel of food, all cold, 
silent and vacant, indeed a house that is not a home. Such is the 
grace of God when it rests idle in the soul, the mere gift of His 
favor, unimproved, little appreciated, religion boasted of and not 
cultivated, a friendship that receives everything and returns noth- 
ing. Not so the generous heart, who having received all from 
God would give God all in return by a life of perfection. 

As a proposition in dialectics, perseverance is a deep mystery, 
but not so much so as a problem of life. For mortal sin alone 
can damn one, and the whole of the life of a fervent Christian is 
a battle against even venial sin. What keeps me out of venial 
sin removes me far away from the danger of mortal sin : a steady 



366 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



purpose, a high resolve of perfect virtue, daily renewed, cherished 
as a point of holy honor. 

A true Christian may be puzzled in reconciling God's impera- 
ative graces with man's inalienable freedom — but as Newman 
says, " a thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." Every 
Christian may win the doctorate of a happy death by leading a 
life that shrinks in horror from the most trifling imperfection, 
and eagerly seeks the least opportunities of doing good. Whether 
he knows it or not, he is under the spell of final perseverance. To 
such souls does the Lord refer when He says : " Father, the 
glory Thou hast given Me, I have given to them " (John xvii. 
22). 

What are the more particular marks of perseverance? If 
none can be infallible, many possess a consoling reassurance in 
moments of despondency. The marks are at the same time the 
means of perpetual constancy, and let the reader note by prefer- 
ence the more interior ones and " be zealous for the better gifts " 
(i Cor. xii. 31). 

These are all forms of love, that sovereign virtue which the 
Bridegroom associates with death: "For strong as death is 
love" (Cant. viii. 6). Let this life and death sentiment flow 
directly from my human heart into the human heart of Christ, 
and through that one exclusive channel into the Divinity. 
Constant love of His Passion and Death forecasts a 
death in His divine embrace. With this supreme virtue of love is 
associated a simple-minded faith in His Gospel and His Church. 
To faith is joined as a twin virtue that one among the divine 
virtues which is the peculium of perseverance, hope " which con- 
foundeth not" (Rom. v. 5) — no, not even at the last dread ven- 
ture of changing life here for life hereafter. The mainstay of a 
Christian when his spirits are dulled by looking into the mystery 
of perseverance, is, first, his love for the Son of God Incarnate ; 
and, second, the sense of his own utter unworthiness. These 
joined together are the secret and intimate comfort of the soul. 
No man ever loved Jesus Christ in vain, except one who allowed 



THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE 367 



self-righteousness gradually to substitute itself for humble con- 
fidence in God. 

This leads us to consider humility, which, with its twin sister 
obedience, ranks high among the signs forecasting perseverance. 
It generates that self-distrust that never slumbers lest the enemy 
surprise it. " He that thinketh himself to stand, let him take 
heed lest he fall " (1 Cor. x. 12). This caution develops with the 
growth of every other virtue, as indeed is needful. For, says 
Newman in his terrible sermon on Perseverance in Grace: "The 
holier a man is, and the higher in the kingdom of heaven, so 
much the greater need has he to look carefully to his 
footing, lest he stumble and be lost. And," he adds, " a deep 
conviction of this necessity has been the sole preservation of the 
saints." 

Whatever other virtue wins grace, humility alone preserves 
it, and enjoys at last the honor of crowning the Christian's life 
with perseverance. Of the moral virtues humility and obedience 
are the blended forces of the Christian's constancy, and take high 
place in his scheme of life and death. Pride leads sinners to 
obduracy, and tepid souls to spiritual slovenliness. Humility is 
open-eyed to one's own faults, and is not ashamed to obey lawful 
authority even in trifles — a momentous advantage in the struggle. 
Once St. Anthony of the Desert saw in a vision the whole world 
so thickly covered with snares, that it seemed hardly possible to 
set down a foot without being caught. At this sight he cried out, 
trembling: "Who, O Lord, can escape them all?" A voice 
answered him: " A man shod with humility, O Anthony." 

The comfort of prayer is both a means and a mark of per- 
severance. For, if even on the verge of desperation I cry to- 
wards heaven: "Abba! Father!" (Rom. viii. 15) the feeble- 
ness of my voice is strengthened by that of God's own spirit 
within me. But it may be objected: Art thou not haunted by 
thy past sins, nor aware of thy present cowardice? To-morrow 
belongs not to thee ; God will perhaps refuse thee His Spirit to- 
morrow. To-morrow thou shalt cry out not to God but to thy 



368 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



own flesh and to the world, and with a voice inspired by the evil 
one. But to these gloomy murmurings I answer : If to-morrow 
belongs not to me, it yet does belong to my God, to the same 
heavenly Father to Whom I cry to-day with words inspired by 
His Spirit. To-day I cry out in all confidence to my Redeemer 
for the renewal of His love to-morrow. The answer is sure: 
" Because he hoped in Me, I will deliver him ; I will protect him, 
because he hath known My name. He shall cry to Me, and I 
will hear him. I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, 
and I will glorify him " (Ps. xc. 14, 15). When I pray for per- 
severance, I simply pray that I may always love. Is not this a 
hard prayer for the God of love to refuse? Wilt thou not per- 
mit me, O Lord, to appreciate Thy love-worthiness? May I 
not desire to pay adoration to Thine infinite goodness now and 
forever more ? May I not confidently trust that " Thy mercy 
shall follow me all the days of my life. That I may dwell in the 
house of the Lord, unto length of days?" (Ps. xxii. 6.) 

Another mark of perseverance is the spirit and practice of 
penance. We speak of superficial piety, and this frothy religion 
is most often shown in early relapses from the friendship of 
God after receiving the sacraments — an alarming token of a 
bad end. Surface holiness is nothing else but shallow contrition 
for sin. It is like the " strippings " or surface layers of a slate 
quarry. These shine bright, but they fade and are brittle, and 
offer poor resistance to the weather. Go down deep and you 
get the slates colored by ages of nature's action, of enduring 
fibre and ever faithful color. Go down deep into your heart for 
God's best work of the graces of contrition. O Christ, Thou 
fountain of all-atoning pain, give me to drink of those holy 
waters of grief, dark and sad. Grant that my sins may roll 
into my memory as the waves of the sea upon a drowning man, 
till I am engulfed and cry out in agony : " Save me, O Lord, 
for the waters have come in even unto my soul " (Ps. lxviii. 2). 
Rescue Thou me from my grief by Thy right hand of pardon. 
In truth nothing is more common among fairly good Christians 



THE MYSTERY OF PERSEVERANCE 369 



than defective penance. Penance of the penetrating quality is 
a plain mark of perseverance. 

Nor should one forget in connection with penance the 
avoidance of evil associations as a good omen. When our 
Savior cast out a devil from an unfortunate young man, He 
threatened the unclean spirit, saying to him : " Thou deaf and 
dumb spirit, I command thee, go out of him ; and enter no more 
into him" (Mark iv. 24). Go out and stay out! O how neces- 
sary the last part of this loving assistance is to the first. 

The veneration of the saints is another mark. What of 
filial trust in Mary's intercession? The whole world of devout 
Catholics know its validity and have enjoyed its sweetness. 
Nor should deep flowing love for any saint or angel be rated 
less than a mark of predestination, giving preference to our 
guardian angel and patron saint. We will even affirm the same 
of religious loyalty to a spiritual director, a kindred spirit who 
is calm, wise and devout. 

Two tests, however, are essential everywhere. One is that 
laid down by the Council of Trent, voicing the Apostle's teach- 
ing. To begin with you must establish such a manner of life as 
" that by good works you may make sure your calling and elec- 
tion. For doing these things, you shall not sin at any time " 
(2 Peter i. 10). The second brings us back to the love of God, 
cherished in this same environment of good works : " If you 
love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John xiv. 15). 
Love for Christ our Lord and our God is the quality to be added 
to everything which makes for good living and happy dying. 
Take an illustration. Good, hard brick makes a firm wall ; 
yet each brick was once nothing but soft clay, full of water 
and moulded any way you like. Why is it now so hard, lasting 
against storm and stress forever? Fire has gone through it, 
fire has burnt it solid as a stone. So the fire of the love of God 
must go through your every virtue ; faith and hope, obedience 
and humility and prayer, devotion to angels and saints, loyalty 
to Church and clergy, nay even the use of the sacraments must 



370 - THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



be permeated with love : " If a man should give the whole sub- 
stance of his house for love, he shall despise it as nothing" 
(Cant. viii. 7). 

When an artist has finished a picture he next gives attention 
to where it shall be hung in the picture gallery. For, he says, 
it must be placed in the right light for the best effects, front or 
side light, bright or dim light. Well, and what is the right 
light in which to exhibit our daily works of virtue? Is it the 
noonday glare of health, the golden beams of prosperity? Is 
it not rather the twilight of our last hours? How many of the 
world's masters, after a long career of power and glory, have 
died miserably, as weary in spirit as they were broken in body. 
How seldom is the death of a great man a great death. On the 
other hand, the noblest hour of every good Christian is his fare- 
well hour on earth. An ordinary hero says of a desperate ven- 
ture : " I will succeed or perish in the attempt." But the hero 
of Christ says : " I will succeed and perish in the attempt." 

Amen ! How many times does Holy Church bid us add this 
word when we have done our prayers ; the last word of all, the 
word of perseverance. Amen! So be it! Every desire of my 
heart, so be it constant towards God to the end ; every pang of 
sorrow for sin, so be it palpitating in my soul to the end ; every 
feeling of love for friend and foe, so be it warm in my heart 
with God's love to the end. I say Amen ! to each and all of my 
acts of religion, Amen ! unto final perseverance. 



XXXIX. 



TILL THE SHADOWS RETIRE. 

According to Fenelon, the validity of our spiritual state 
depends on our answers to the following questions: Do I love 
to think of God? Am I willing to suffer for God? Does my 
desire to be with Him destroy my fear of death? 

There is no variance in the teachings of spiritual writers, that 
holiness of life and willingness to die are inseparable dispositions, 
forming that character who " shall not be confounded when he 
shall speak to his enemies in the gate " of death (Ps. cxxvi. 5). 

Of the death of a just man it has been said, that it is a door 
which is iron on one side and gold on the other side — that heav- 
enly side, where Christ and His angels attend the entrance of 
those who die happy. Well may we honor death, for it emanci- 
pates our love of divine things from the deceits of transitory 
things: death is freedom final and perfect from all delusions. 
It is a token of love ; it is a witness of final perseverance in love ; 
it pays love's debt, being the one perfect atonement for the in- 
jury love has suffered by sin. 

As our years go onward the fruit of life ripens whilst the 
leaves decay, and death strips the tree of mortal things and 
garners our eternal merits from the bosom of God. 

Thus death has a joyous aspect, nay, it is the all- joyous 
entrance to eternal joy. St. Paul cried out: " For me to live is 
Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. i. 21) ; and again when suffering 
from the plots of enemies : " From henceforth let no man be 
troublesome to me ; for I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus in my 
body " (Gal. vi. 17), meaning that the Lord's death wounds were 
shown forth by the Apostle's mortified bodily frame, just as the 
death of Jesus was the constant theme of his discourses. With 
many good Christians the whole fear of God is fear of death, a 

(371) 



372 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



sentiment corrected by St. Francis de Sales thus : " I beseech 
you for the honor of God, my child, not to be 'afraid' of God, 
for He does not wish to do you any harm " {Letters to Persons 
in the World, Mackey, p. 295). Meanwhile deep-seated fear of 
God is quite consistent with not being afraid of death. If death 
has its terrors, they are not for a soldier of Jesus Crucified. The 
noblest courage of life is shown in facing death unflinchingly. 

What is the Christian Church? An institution founded by 
God to show forth a death. What death? The death that goes 
before life eternal, that of God at Jerusalem. To show forth 
that death for how long? Till all men each in turn shall have 
died. To show it forth to whom? To all mankind, in every 
corner of the world, in every death-chamber in the world, so that, 
as the Apostle teaches, being dead with Christ we may " live also 
together with Christ" in heaven for all eternity (Rom. vi. 8). 
Hence the dearest wisdom of the Catholic Church is the lesson 
of a happy death, a wisdom never out of season. For if there 
is the greatest need of hope in the closing period of a Christian's 
life — despondency is in the very air of those twilight hours — 
yet most aged Christians face death without flinching. And 
there are some temperaments which even in the buoyant years of 
youth tremble at the thought of death. To young and old the 
practice of Catholic virtue brings courage to face our inevitable 
foe, come he early or late, sudden or with timely warnings. 

We are men of Christ's divine faith. We are enrolled among 
the living by the death of Christ. It cannot be that we shall 
tremble at death, since God forbid that we should glory in any- 
thing save in the cross, the death-gibbet of our Lord Jesus Christ 
(Gal. vi. 14). Therefore, St. Philip Neri says that "the true 
servants of God take life patiently and death eagerly." 

St. Cyprian, discoursing of true Christian learning, points to 
the martyrs as holding its highest diploma, saying that " they 
knew not how to dispute, but they knew how to die." Every 
Christian may win the premium of a happy death, even though 
the little catechism is the limit of his learning. Better still is 



TILL THE SHADOWS RETIRE 



373 



the thought that love, the easiest of virtues because the sweetest, 
challenges all the terrors of the last passage, " for strong as death 
is love " (Cant. viii. 6). 

We know that each of us has ever at his side a close com- 
panion of the heavenly kind, our angel guardian. But how vivid 
a contrast between his life and mine. He drinks of the waters , 
of life at the very fountainhead and in overflowing abundance; 
I only in little sips, and with a hand that tremblingly spills those 
precious drops of divine inspiration. He lives upon Godlike food, 
nay, he is forever eating and drinking of the celestial food that 
veritably is God Himself ; I only occasionally partake of God 
in Holy Communion, and then with taste already sated with 
carnal banquets, my usual food being the dust of the earth, sauced 
with sin's ugly, gluttonous hunger. He lives unchangeably alive 
with divine vitality, and I live a life slowly rotting away, doomed 
finally to be changed into the earth that I live by and that I so 
fondly love. To my life the light of the sun is all my light, and 
I shall be deprived of even that, and my eyes shall one day gaze 
at the noonday sun and see orAf black darkness. How different 
from me art thou, and how much more happy thy lot, O my good 
angel. And yet I have one privilege which thou hast not : / can 
die. In that privilege I am closer to thy divine King than thou 
art. I can say what thou canst not : " With Christ I am nailed 
to the cross " (Gal. ii. 19). He is thy King, indeed, and yet thou 
canst not say as I can : " Let us also go, that we may die with 
Him " (John xi. 16). I had rather be a man whose lot is with 
Jesus dead and buried, than an angel who cannot taste death nor 
the grave. 

St. Teresa says that " life is to live in such a way as not to 
be afraid to die" (Foundations, xxvii., 10). Nor does readiness 
to die here and now undervalue the self-distrust about future 1 
temptations, which has the effect of concentrating one's efforts 
on the present religious opportunities. This day at least is mine. 
Humbly and confidently I pass its hours, perform its duties, offer 
up its sufferings. To do this and to do it fairly well for one 



374 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



day is not difficult, but it is enough to comfort my mind concern- 
ing the day of death, be it near or far. If I do well to-day I have 
no mental energies to waste on misgivings about to-morrow. 
What is now to-day, was to-morrow a few hours ago. And that 
day of my life whose morrow shall be eternity, shall be controlled 
by the momentum of an interior habit of resting in thoughts of 
God. Therefore does the Apostle boast : " We had in ourselves 
the answer of death, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in 
God, Who raiseth the dead " (2 Cor. i. 9). 

He that is at ease in the interior ways of God, steps forth 
gladly into the way of death. He that loves no person or thing 
save only in the order of reason and of grace, soon learns thus to 
go on and ever on until death. " Thy testimonies have become 
exceedingly credible; holiness becometh Thy house, O Lord, 
unto length of days" (Ps. xcii. 5). 

St. Thomas Aquinas was asked on his deathbed how to be- 
come perfect. He answered : " Walk faithfully in God's pres- 
ence, always be ready to give Him an account of thy actions as 
at the point of death." God and death are the names of the 
teacher and the lesson in the school of life. It is related in the 
Life of Mother Margaret Mary Hallahan, that there was a little 
boy in her orphan asylum who was very pious, praying fervently 
and intelligently at the age of even four years. Before he reached 
five he died, and as he was judged too young to receive Holy 
Communion, the Sisters requested the bishop to give him con- 
firmation. He was told he could take another name on receiving 
the sacrament, that of some saint whom he especially loved. 
" Then," said he, " let me take God for my new name, for there 
is nobody I love like Him." And if he could not have that in- 
communicable name in life, yet his innocent soul received it after 
death, for the holy chrism placed him among those who " shall 
see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads " (Apoc. 
xxii. 4). 

Among the last words of St. Teresa were these : " I am a 
child of the Church." She offered her death as witness of her 



TILL THE SHADOWS RETIRE 375 



fidelity to the Catholic Church, the Spouse of Christ. Our Lord's 
words to Pilate show how He valued His death as a token of 
faithfulness to truth: "For this was I born, and for this came 
I into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth" 
(John xviii. 37) — this in answer to the Jews' clamors for His 
crucifixion ; and of the Eucharist, His death's universal and per- 
petual memorial, He says : " This is the New Testament in My 
blood " (Luke xxii. 20). 

God exacts this evidence of allegiance from all, for all must 
die, and without this we should fall short of a perfect quittance 
of our obligation to manifest our loyalty. Suppose that you could 
be exempted from death. You would be not only separated from 
the lot of Jesus Christ and His saints, but you would appear 
before Him empty of the best credentials for Paradise. Without 
presenting this crucial test you would be ashamed to enter heaven, 
which is the abode of men and women who know Christ in His 
glory, because they have been " made conformable to His death " 
(Phil. iii. 10). Love, whose last word is spoken in death, is most 
truly eloquent when its pulpit is fixed at the eternal parting of 
the ways. The golden age of our religion was when men and 
women on quitting paganism prepared for martyrdom, an era of 
death witnessing to Christ and His truth, as the usual Christian 
condition. 

The Psalmist's saying, " Precious in the sight of God is the 
death of His saints " (Ps. cxv. 15), is a revelation of the benig- 
nant Father receiving into His bosom the heroic soul of His 
beloved child. But, in a sense, the death of a penitent sinner, 
even one but newly changed from foe to friend, is divinely pre- 
cious. Whatever else was lacking the good thief, he had his 
death to offer to the Father in union with that of the Only-be- 
gotten. Whosoever can present to God the supreme atonement 
of death, is not to be disheartened by the remembrance of a 
whole lifetime crowded with foulest iniquities. Even if his 
death be the consequence, nay the very penalty of his crimes, 
if he be but truly contrite his death chamber shall resound with 



37^ 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



the eternal promise of Calvary : " This day shalt thou be with 
Me in Paradise" (Luke xxiii. 43). 

All this helps to answer a palpable difficulty: How can I 
offer my death to God as a ransom sirce I must perforce pay it 
as a debt? The solution is this: By my death I give in love 
what I might give in hate. Take an illustration of each sort of 
death, one of hate and one of love. Julian, the Apostate, hav- 
ing spent his whole reign endeavoring to destroy the worship of 
Christ in the Roman Empire, came to His death from a Parthian 
arrow. Sinking upon the ground, he saw his life-blood leaping 
•forth from the wound, and with his remaining strength he cast 
it in handfuls into the air, exclaiming to Christ in despair and de- 
fiance : " O Galilean, Thou hast conquered." Francisco Pizarro 
was one of the crudest of mankind, a murderer by system, who 
consummated a career of human slaughter by putting the Inca 
to death against his plighted word. Broken at last in health, 
and touched by divine grace, surrounded by traitors whom he 
had enriched by his blood-stained booty, he was suddenly set 
upon by his treacherous followers and assassinated. He fought 
hard for his life, but at last he sank down. Then, knowing his 
end had come, he dabbled his hand in his blood, and with it 
made a large cross on the ground, and murmuring a prayer to 
God for pardon, he fell over upon that cross of his own blood 
and expired. 

A wife gives her husband a birthday present. She bought 
it with his money, for is not all that she has given her by him ? 
Yet it is really a gift to him and a most welcome one. Though 
wholly his property by original ownership, yet now she has 
made it infinitely more so by making it a token of her affection. 
Such is the relation of a Christian to God in saying to his 
heavenly Father with Jesus Crucified : " Father into Thy hands 
I commend My spirit" (Luke xxiii. 46). 

Thus the sadness of my last hours is cheered by my power 
to make my death agony a token of immortal love. I can unite 
it to that of Jesus Christ by a prerogative granted me at my 



TILL THE SHADOWS RETIRE Z77 



first presentation to Him by my Mother, the Catholic Church: 
" Know you not that all we, who are baptized in Christ Jesus, 
are baptized in His death?" (Rom. vi. 3.) As our Savior 
went to His death by the will of His Father, and yet offered 
Himself on the cross because He willed it and not otherwise (Is. 
liii. 7), so likewise am I free to die, and yet powerless to escape 
death. Christ is my fellowman, my fellow-ransomer, my 
partner in the barter of mortality for immortality; and from 
His super-abundance of liberty and of obedience unto death 
I will freely draw. I desire to die the kind of death the Lord 
wills rather than any other, His time rather than earlier or later, 
accepting all the pains cheerfully in stated preference to their 
absence. I thus give my death its moral quality; it is all I can 
give, but it is much. 

In no way can the clamor of divine justice within us be 
hushed so quickly as by the offer to die. I am a sinner, and 
"the wages of sin is death" (Rom. vi. 23). I must accept my 
deserts. An honest man gladly parts with hard-won money to 
pay a just debt, because it settles his conscience, on which he 
depends for his happiness. So do we look forward to pay the 
" debt of nature," corrupt nature. All life is a debtor's prison, 
not without solace, but never without the chafe of the body 
upon the soul. Our bodily frame is our prison cell. The dust 
placed on our heads by Holy Church on Ash Wednesday is 
gathered from the withered forms of the countless sinners who 
have gone before us, as ours shall be gathered in turn and 
sprinkled upon our successors. Such thoughts give a gloomy 
view of life, but only for a time, for they indicate unerringly 
the actual relation of life to death in a sin-stricken race; and 
once they become familiar, they lead us habitually to reckon ex- 
clusively with the immortal things of our destiny. The vast 
bulk of Christians are penitents, and their only really great 
gift to God is their death. And it approaches nearest to an 
adequate gift, for the sinner of longest years, whose foulness 
has smirched his whole life from his infantile furies till his 



373 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



gray-haired lust. Repenting at the eleventh hour, he is wholly 
comforted to be able to say : I can yet die for my outraged Re- 
deemer, with Him, and on account of Him. This is infinitely 
better than the millionaire's legacy to charity, paid to God after 
its owner can no longer enjoy it. Life is greater than money. 
Death is an offering of supreme greatness. We cannot pay God 
money any more than we can feed Him with bread. Says the 
Lord to faithless Israel: " If I should be hungry I would not 
tell thee, for the world is Mine and the fulness thereof" (Ps. 
xlix. 12). And yet alms given to God's poor are for the re- 
mission of sins (Tob. xii. 9). How much more the whole sub- 
stance of our life's house in the offering up of death. 

An illustration of this is shown by the custom of devout 
souls secretly offering themselves up to immediate death — an 
oblation not seldom accepted by heaven — for the conversion of 
some well-loved friend whose career points to an evil end. 
And, indeed, with what other intention than this, made uni- 
versal, did Jesus Christ die on Calvary? 



XL. 



EARTH AND HEAVEN. 

A singular life is this : we are to labor with eager interest 
in the present whirl of existence to save our souls ; many of us 
are further called to strive with all our might to seek and save the 
souls of others. And yet we are to make our own the restless 
longing of the Apostle to quit this life : " Having a desire to be 
dissolved and to be with Christ, a thing by far the better " (Phil, 
i. 23) : a desire to see God in unveiled splendor, and in perfect 
and final beatitude. My Redeemer bore my sins; in my very 
name and in my very stead He suffered that I might " reign to- 
gether with Him " (2 Tim. ii. 12) in realms of eternal bliss. He 
called me and He knew me personally at my birth (Rom. viii. 
30), and in my baptism, and for me He set apart a seat in His 
Paradise above. " If thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of 
God" (John xi. 40). But do we thus efficaciously believe? 
Sometimes we forbode a bad death, we fear the pirates who 
usually wait to attack ships when on the return voyage laden 
with precious freight. " The devil," says St. Chrysostom, " when 
he sees that a soul has gathered great spiritual riches by prayer 
and sacraments, by chastity and alms deeds and all other virtues, 
a vessel now full of rich treasures, attacks it and every way strives 
to capture it at the end of life's voyage." Most truly said. But 
what pirate can overcome Christ, our Shipmaster? Trustfulness 
in our Lord's promises is one of the bright lights seen through 
the mists of death. Once St. Matilda was praying for a nun of 
her community who was dying. Our Savior appeared to the Saint 
and said : " What mariner is there, who, after he had brought a 
rich cargo of goods into port, would throw them all overboard 
into the sea ? " Jesus is that mariner, my immortal soul is the 
cargo, Holy Church is the ship, hell is the sea. 

(379) 



3 8o 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



Our sailing orders bid us look towards the harbor's mouth at 
every hour of the day or night. Life and death are our watch- 
words, and they are thus related to each other in the divine cate- 
gories : " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the 
crown of life" (Apoc. ii. 10). We have all heard of the men- 
acing inscription on a gravestone : " What thou art I once was ; 
what I am, thou shalt be." Just as truly may the sweet tones of a 
departed friend a joyful voice from the skies, speak to us from 
the bright company of the angels: "What thou art I once was; 
what I am thou shalt be." Until death is known as the near ap- 
proach of everlasting happiness, it is not understood in the 
Christian sense, nor does its thought rightly intensify our pur- 
poses. " Remember," says St. Francis de Sales, " what I am ac- 
customed to say : we shall never spend one good Lent as long as 
we expect to make two. Let us make this as the last, and we 
shall make it well " {Letters to Persons in the World, Mackey, 

p. 278). 

St. Bernard, while in a sort of trance, seemed to see the devil 
accusing him. To the evil one's charges he made answer : " I 
confess myself most unworthy of the glory of heaven, and that I 
can never obtain it by my own merits. But my Lord possesses 
it by a double title ; that of natural inheritance, being the Only- 
begotten Son of the Eternal Father; and that of purchase, He 
having bought it by His Precious Blood. This second title He 
has transferred to me; and upon this right I hope, with an as- 
sured confidence, to obtain it through His adorable Passion and 
His mercy." By this plea the perverse accuser was put to flight. 
A penitent soul may thus address his judge : Lord, I do not deny, 
for I cannot, that I am the greatest sinner in the United States ; 
but Thou art the greatest Pardoner in the whole universe. 

It is the interest, the joy, the triumph of Jesus to save me. 
And I? Shall it not be my interest, my joy, my triumph to be 
saved ? If my tendency to evil discourages me ; my knowledge of 
hell, my appreciation of heaven, my tendency to love Jesus Cru- 
cified, all hearten me. No gambler ever staked his whole fortune 



EARTH AND HEAVEN 



38i 



on so desperate a wager as Jesus, when He flung His Life into 
the game of my salvation — shall I cause Him to suffer forfeit? 
O God, my God, how shall I honor Thee? The answer from 
heaven is: Do not distrust Me. Even in its human aspect and 
as a natural virtue, hopefulness is exceedingly attractive, and we 
find light-hearted and trustful natures universal favorites. A 
confiding spirit may sometimes be deceived ; but he is steadfastly 
loved; trust for trust is the common barter of the commerce of 
souls. If a confiding character has also commanding ability, 
he is acclaimed the champion of the weak, and the captain of the 
embattled hosts of a righteous cause. Who follows a morose 
man gladly, even if he be a genius? Distrustful characters are 
essentially selfish, and the atmosphere of acquisitiveness is repul- 
sion. On the other hand, a sanguine temperament quickly takes 
on a kindly spirit toward others, and readily draws them to him. 
To such a soul suspiciousness is not so much a defect as a crime. 

" O that God may take us from this world," once exclaimed 
a holy man, " or take this world from us by detachment ; may He 
make us die, or else make us love His death better than our own 
poor life." Herein he stated the reason of life's hardness to the 
nobler class of spirits — the thought of heaven. And indeed the 
journey from nothing to everything must be a hard road and 
a long one. But what matters it how much I suffer, if I tread 
the path that leads to eternal peace. As men are glad to cross 
stormy oceans to better their material condition, a thousand times 
more glad are the wiser Christians to embark on a life of piety, 
for it is the divine venture for heaven's shores. St. Aloysius, 
though he had but just begun his life, " was overwhelmed with 
joy " when he found that he had caught the fever then so fatal 
in Rome. Yet how few would be glad to die even after a most 
worthy communion, though they could not doubt that their death 
would then be surely a happy one — it is almost universally an 
heroic act to cherish, like St. Teresa, 

The yearning hope to break away 
From this my prison house of clay. 



3^2 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



On the other hand it was esteemed heroic in St. Ignatius to 
be willing to live on for the sake of saving men's souls, although 
it was revealed to him that by death heaven's glories were cer- 
tain to be his. Such spirits estimate joy in life and in death by 
Calvary's standards, whose Hero died in the moment of victory 
and yet amid the supreme agony of defeat. All roads that lead 
to eternal joy pass over Calvary. 

It is often said to one devoutly seeking spiritual direction: 
Do now what you would be glad of having done when you are in 
heaven. So our Master bade us pray to His Father : " Thy Will 
be done on earth as it is done in heaven " (Matt. vi. 10). O what 
joy ! God has given me grace to accept shame for His Son's sake, 
and now I rejoice for it and shall rejoice in all eternity. "It is 
good for me that thou hast humbled me, that I may learn Thy 
justifications" (Ps. cxviii. 71). That shame has become my 
glory. That shame has taught me to love the bruised Heart of 
my Savior, and now I am a partaker of Its divine happiness. St. 
Peter exhorts us : " If you partake of the sufferings of Christ, 
rejoice that when His glory shall be revealed, you may also be 
glad with exceeding joy" (1 Peter iv. 13). And our Savior 
Himself promises: "Your sorrow shall be turned into joy" 
(John xvi. 20). How precious is that sorrow which is turned 
into so great a joy as heaven. How truly does Holy Church 
apply to the Mother of Sorrows the words of the prophet : " O 

Virgin daughter of Sion great as the sea is thy destruction " 

(Lam. ii. 13) — an ocean of sorrow turned into an ocean of joy 
in Paradise. 

Such thoughts as these help us to make little of the honors 
of this life. St. Philip Neri was several times requested by the 
Pope to accept the high dignity of Cardinal, and always refused. 
His prime motive was revealed when an intimate friend begged 
him to accept for the sake of his Congregation of the Oratory. 
The Saint answered by taking off his biretta and, looking up rev- 
erently and affectionately towards the skies, he exclaimed : " O 
Paradise ! O Paradise ! " How well that obstinate man knew 



EARTH AND HEAVEN 



333 



the meaning of St. Paul's teaching: "Therefore, my beloved 
brethren, be ye steadfast and immoveable, always abounding in 
the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in 
the Lord" (1 Cor. xv. 58). 

Many think that purgatory will be like heaven to them, 
since then the dreadful risk of sin will be over. But purgatory 
is only heaven's novitiate. It is also the debtor's prison, wherein 
we are made ready for that blissful condition which includes 
the sense of payment in full of all the divine demands upon us : 
heaven will be the sweeter on account of purgatory. And most 
sweet indeed if we can look back to this life as a self-chosen 
debtor's prison, a purgatory of our own making, where, with 
hard thrift of virtue, we have made even with God's stern 
justice. 

"God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. ix. 7), a willing 
payer of debts of penance and atonement. Absolute freedom, 
indeed, is never vouchsafed in this life ; but the nearest approach 
to it is the Christian's anticipation of God's day of reckoning, 
saying : Why wait till the last moment, since my debt to God is so 
just, and my heart is stirred with so strong a desire to be at 
quits with Him now. When I have my choice to hasten or to 
tarry in dealing with God, the better way is the heavenly one. In 
heaven — let us bear it in mind — freedom is at home and is per- 
fect. How great is that freedom which knows no law because it 
needs it not, where proof is made of the Apostle's meaning: 
" Knowing this, that the law is not made for the just man " ( r 
Tim. i. 9). How glorious is the law of heaven, which is supremely 
well obeyed and yet never commands ! In this world our obedi- 
ence is not that of heaven, absorbed wholly in love. It is the 
painful monotony of ever-recurring tasks hard to flesh and blood, 
harder yet to the uprising of pride. But the steadfastness of 
grace is ours, and the example of Christ, Who when close to the 
end exclaimed to heaven : " Father, I have finished the work 
which Thou gavest Me to do" (John xvii. 4). O how sublime! 
My preparation for heaven must be on that pattern. The finish- 



3^4 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



ing of the work God gave me to do is my purgatory, either now 
or after death. 

Purgatory is moreover the graduate school of love. It hin- 
ders the shame an imperfect soul would feel if thrust prematurely 
into heaven, the abode of the perfect. St. Paul tells of the heav- 
enly Jerusalem as the company of many thousands of the angels 
and the Church of the firstborn, and of the unveiled presence of 
God, the Judge of all, and the fellowship of " the spirits of the 
just made perfect" (Heb. xii. 23). The love that rules in such 
a company is deep-searching, and wisely may a Christian soul 
crave a final cleansing before venturing in, saying to the Son of 
God : " Lord, Thy love is too strong for me as yet. When after 
my happy death Thine eyes greeted me, they blinded me with their 
searching love. When Thy hand clasped mine it broke my bones 
with its eager love. When Thou didst press me to Thy heart, 
its love burnt me most painfully. Ah, dear Jesus, Thou must 
let me devote some time to the further practice of holy love, so 
that little by little I may grow used to such strong love as thine ! " 

What, after all, is the highest praise of God's law ? That it 
is identical with God's love. What, then, should be my submis- 
sion to God's law but the constant increase of His love in me; 
this is my true life, of which our Savior said : " I am come that 
they may have life, and may have it more abundantly " (John x. 
10). The Apostle's saying is the proper gloss for this promise of 
life: " For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain " (Phil. i. 21) — 
gain, because dying here means the beginning of a divinely abund- 
ant life in heaven. There we have supreme and universal life, 
the originating and actuating principle of all existence. There we 
live in perfect gladness that God is our loving Father, that He is 
our loving Redeemer, that He has espoused our souls to His 
Holy Spirit. 

The sum of our soul's life is longing and trustfulness : long- 
ing for God's joy, trustfulness that in due season He will bestow 
it upon us. Our Savior in distinguishing between God's lesser 
and greater gifts, says : Rejoice not in this, that spirits are sub- 



EARTH AND HEAVEN 



385 



ject to you, but rejoice in this, that your names are written in 
heaven" (Luke x. 20). By our longing for this our own hand 
writes God's name deep in our hearts, a sign manual of love; 
and, simultaneously, in the book of life our name is written by 
Jesus Christ, His record of having won our love. Love, true 
personal love, cannot be devoid of feeling; it is a sentiment 
though it be sprung from conviction. We cannot love anyone 
heartily, and not feel tenderly towards him. Be conscious of that 
feeling toward your Redeemer in Bethlehem, and on Calvary, 
and on the Altar, and in the Sacrament of Penance, and you 
have written His name in your soul, and He has inscribed yours 
in heaven. 

But you must approve your inner adhesion to Him by out- 
ward good deeds ; you must make this feeling victorious in the 
conflict, so inevitable, so bitter, with baser sentiments. Jesus is 
the truest friend ever known. The foremost excellence of a 
friend is that he is steadfast. O Jesus, of Thee it is written: 
" God is faithful" (1 Cor. x. 13), and I humbly trust that as 
Thou art now my friend, as I am Thine, so Thou wilt continue to 
the end and into the ages of blissful Eternity. Solomon said to 
Thee of his Temple : " Building, I have built a house for Thy 
dwelling, to be Thy most firm throne forever " (3 Kings viii. 13). 
Yet it was only a house of earth that crumbled and vanished away. 
But I have built Thee a house of love in my immortal soul ; shalt 
Thou not make it Thy throne forever? Shalt Thou not be true to 
our mutual plighted love, and help me in my moments of weak- 
ness, my direst hour of temptation — shalt Thou not be steadfast 
and make me steadfast to the end? " O Lord God, in Thee have 
I put my trust ; save me from all them that persecute me ; and 
deliver me " (Ps. vii. 2). 

The beloved disciple's vision of heaven tells of God's making 
His celestial home ours by the mighty fiat of His love: "And I, 
John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of 
heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 
And T heard a great voice from the throne saying: Behold the 



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THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them. And 
they shall be His people, and God Himself with them shall be 
their God" (Apoc. xxi. 2, 3). How great is God's love of 
this earth, since it impels Him to make heaven and earth one for 
His own gratification. How great is even my love, since it is 
strong enough to draw down God and all His angels to dwell 
with me. " Canst not Thou then, O my God," exclaims Blessed 
John of Avila, " be happy without me, that my love for Thee 
should draw Thee down to me ? " God's love for us is inspired 
not by our worthiness so much as by His own tender compassion 
for us. When anyone loves another he wants to continue to love 
him. So God when He loves me wants to keep on loving, for 
whosoever is worth loving at all is worth loving forever. God's 
present love for me means His purpose to love me eternally in 
heaven. 

Even if God meant to give the same reward hereafter to 
those who suffer willingly for His sake, and those who do not, 
we ought still to choose suffering for our lot, were it only to be 
like Jesus Crucified and lovingly to bear Him company. 

Grace is sometimes defined to be a pure divine excitement. 
Our dignity, when we are in a state of grace, is in itself a twilight 
glory of heaven's meridian splendor, for the grace of God is His 
blessed Spirit dwelling within us in the peace and joy of a wel- 
come guest (Rom. xiv. 17). "Both in Holy Scripture and in 
the writings of the Fathers, Christian men are styled regene- 
rated, new creatures, partakers of the divine nature, children of 

God, godlike Now this wonderful union, which is properly 

called the indwelling of God, differs only in degree or state from 
that with which God beatifies the saints in heaven" (Leo XIII., 
Encyclical on the Holy Ghost, May 9, 1897). The perfection of 
this blessedness on earth is felt in those intervals, truly heaven- 
ly, when God's thoughts are ours, since we then feel that His 
nature, so wise, so good, so true, has become ours. We have 
only to add the clear vision of Him to elevate our souls to His 
joy in heaven. 



EARTH AND HEAVEN 



387 



To the divine elation of a fervent life will then be added the 
crowning grace of final perseverance : " Be thou faithful unto 
death, and I will give thee the crown of life" (Apoc. ii. 10). 
Sin haunts me now; the very risk I run of falling away from 
God sickens me, terrifies me. In heaven I shall be incapable 
of sin. O what a dignity, what a joy! Is not all this 
enough to cause us to live, as it were, within easy reach 
of the portals of Paradise ? If we ask Holy Church : What 
does God give by divine grace ? she answers : He gives what a 
Godlike generosity calls for, He gives Himself in essence and 
presence and love dwelling within us ; in heaven He gives the 
same except with a more overflowing fulness. He is infinite 
wisdom; in heaven " we shall see Him as He is " (1 John iii. 2), 
for " God hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous 
light" (1 Peter, ii. 9). No wonder that the nearer the saints 
came to death, the quicker was the response of their faith to 
God's promise of heaven. Shortly before he died, St. John of 
the Cross said, as he heard the convent bell ringing for midnight 
office, " I will sing matins in heaven to-morrow," and expired. 

Alban Butler says that we must so plant and cultivate the 
seeds of supernatural virtues in our souls, " that they may be 
converted into nature, and be the principle by which all the 
affections of our souls and all the actions of our lives are gov- 
erned." That is a strong expression, " converted into nature," 
and it is used to show that in the life of grace a divine force 
absorbs our human powers. So that what nature is to the 
springs of conduct in ordinary men, grace becomes in the lives 
of good Christians. Perseverance can hardly be counted on 
otherwise than by entire absorption in God, to end in what the 
Apostle speaks of as heaven's transfiguring influence upon us: 
"We all beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are 
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by 
the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. iii. 18). 

Towards this end every virtuous impulse reaches forth, 
the sweetness of its inward joy creating an appetite for more 



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THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 



virtue. Thus, for example, to say one fervent prayer is to long 
to say another. Thus God's friendship is soon made a chain 
of devout acts, inner and outer, all binding us closer and closer 
to our blessed destiny. Thus it is that earth is riveted to 
heaven. 



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